Osky Baseball Team Falls in Season Opener.

Oskaloosa Indians

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Coming into the 2014 Baseball season the Indians have some high expectations and they were looking to get off to a strong start as they welcomed the Albia Blue Demons to town. What the Osky boy’s got was just like the weather gloomy , be it self inflicted or Albia tearing the cover off of the baseball it was bad news as Osky fell to the Blue Demons 11-2.

Osky sent Senior-Nick Rutledge to the mound and that normally spells trouble for opponents, but on this Memorial Day Monday it was a memory Osky would look to forget in a hurry. Rutledge struggled with his control through the first two innings. He hit 5 batters and walked 2 more as he just couldn’t find his control. This, coupled with two Osky errors in the first two innings, put Osky onto a hole that they couldn’t overcome.

Albia, in the mean time, was taking advantage of the base runners and they were stringing hits together to cruise to the victory. Albia was lead by the Leshen brothers, Brett and Bryce, along with Griffin Osing as they had multiple RBI’s. Albia had 13 hits in the game, with many players having two hits each.

Osky not only struggled in the field but the bats were not producing either as the only managed 5 hits in the game, Junior Mitchell Schaffner had a RBI and two hits, Junior Logan Lundsford had a RBI single , Junior Nate Van Veldhuizen had a double and Rutledge rounded out the hits with a double.

Coach Clint Gingrich said that giving a good baseball team free bases is something you can’t do because they usually turn those into runs. Gingrich did take some positive things out of the contest, besides the first couple innings he felt the boys played solid defense. He noted some nice plays by Rutledge at third and a nice catch by Van Veldhuizen in left field. Gingrich was also very pleased with the pitching performance of Senior-Travis Gile, who came in throwing strikes and pitched to contact, and helped give the Indians some innings.

Osky travels to Martindale St. Marys Thursday in a JV/V double header.