Winget win

By TRAVIS METCALF

TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS July 03, 2008 09:28 am

— BARTLESVILLE — Coaches typically cringe when they look at the scoreboard and see only two hits through five innings on their side of the scoreboard.
For the Oklahoma Bandits, it wasn’t all bad, especially when one of those hits is a 3-run home run and the other is a solo home run.
The rest of the time the Bandits took advantage of walks, hit batters and errors in a 7-3 win over Lawrence, Kan. in the first round of the Winget Tournament on Wednesday evening at Doenges Stadium in Bartlesville.
“Walks will kill you and they walked us a couple of times and that’s how we scored some runs,” Bandits coach Sergio Espinal said.
Greg Jackson led off the Bandits first inning with a walk. Following back-to-back outs, Josh Linn walked to bring up Brad Shankle for his 2-out 3-run home run to give the Bandits a 3-0 lead.
“That was big because we really didn’t swing the bats real well,” Espinal said. “The 3-run dinger really helped us get going.”
Lawrence got single runs in the first and second innings, one of those a solo home run by Jake Green, one of two on the day for Green as the Raiders cut the lead to 3-2.
Jackson then hit a solo shot to put the Bandits up on top by two in the third inning. Outside of that, the Bandits really couldn’t find many hits to speak of until the sixth inning.
Leading 4-3 after Green hit his second home run of the evening for the Raiders in the fourth inning, Jason Travis led off the sixth with a double.
After a flyout to first for the first out of the inning, Shankle walked and Brandon Espinal hit a single to load the bases.
After Lawrence made a pitching change, Phil Correa singled in Travis to give the Bandits some insurance. Chance Ross then drew a walk to bring in Shankle while Jerrad Copeland walked to drive in Espinal to give the Bandits a more comfortable 7-3 lead.
Meanwhile, Jake Fisher turned in another complete-game performance, going all seven innings, giving up three runs, seven hits, one walk and one hit batter while striking out nine in picking up the win.
Shankle finished with a 2-for-3 night with a walk and two runs scored. Jackson threw in a 1-for-2 night with two walks and two runs scored as well.
As a team, Lawrence gave up six walks and hit one batter.
The Bandits got an early start today as they were to start their second round game this morning at 9 against Fort Smith.

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