LA MIRADA, California- Lance Smith
The Shepherds had their fourth game versus the Long Beach Legends on Friday evening at La Quinta High School. The Sheps had won two of three coming into the game and hoped to take another in the five game season series. Roy Washburn took the bump and looked to repeat his last two starts as he had only given up 4 earned runs in his last 15.0 innings pitched.
The game looked to be going in the Shepherds favor after taking an early 3-2 lead and then added to it with a three run homerun from Cayd Katnik in the top of the 6th inning. Unfortunately, in the bottom of the 7th inning the Legends unloaded and put up a five-spot which they followed up by tacking another two on to their lead in the 8th making the score 9-6 in favor of the Legends.
The Shepherds made a strong comeback effort putting up two runs in the top of the 9th to get within one of the lead with 2 runners in scoring position but were unable to capitalize and fell 9-8. Regardless, the Sheps have won three of their last five and are peaking at the right time.
Michael Flaherty (3-0) picked up the win and Roy Washburn (2-2) was tacked with the loss.
Notes
- Jamie Laframboise went 2-3 and reached base 4 times
- LaFramboise also stole 3 bases in the game
- Cayd Katnik went 1-2 hitting the first regular season home run for the Sheps
- Katnik recorded 4 RBI’s on the game
- Joey Scotvold went 2-4 with 2 singles
- Connor Aldrich went 2-4 with 2 RBI’s
Quote from Cade Katnik
When asked about what the team can take away from this game: “Take that dog fight, start from the beginning, and keep it rolling all game. We just need to keep it going, carry that fight over, and try to not give up the big inning. Two hits changed the game from their side (that led to) the big inning.”
What’s next
The Shepherds have an off day tomorrow before returning to action on Sunday, July 11th, versus the Inland Valley Buccaneers at 1:00 pm PST. The game will be played at Whittier Christian High School live streamed on the Shepherds Facebook page which can be found at https://www.facebook.com/socalfcabaseball/. To stay up to date on all things Shepherds baseball follow us on Instagram (@shepherds_baseball), Twitter (@SoCalShpherds), and Facebook (Southern California FCA Baseball).