Grant Union/Prairie City’s Talon VanCleave winds up on the mound during his team’s split with Weston-McEwen on Saturday, April 15, 2023 at Malone Field in John Day.

JOHN DAY — The Grant Union/Prairie City baseball team played to a 1-1 split in a pair of games with the Tigerscots of Weston-McEwen on Saturday, April 15, at Malone Field in John Day.

The first game in the doubleheader was an 8-4 win by the Prospectors that saw the team stop a Tigerscot rally in the top of the seventh inning.

The Tigerscots struck first, scoring the game’s first two runs in the top of the first inning.

The Pros would respond, scoring three runs in the first and second innings while adding another pair of runs in the third and fourth innings to take an 8-2 lead into the final three innings of play. The score would remain unchanged at 8-2 until a Tigerscot rally in the top of the seventh inning.

Weston-McEwen would load the bases with no outs in the top of the seventh. A Weston batter would be struck by a pitch, and an RBI single would draw the Tigerscots to within four runs at 8-4 before the Pros shut the door on the rally.

Talon VanCleave led the Pros offensively, finishing 2-4 at the plate with an RBI. Sheldon Lenz was the only other Prospector to record an RBI in the game, finishing 1-1 at the plate. Grant Union/Prairie City batters drew five walks in the contest.

VanCleave and Ryland Beil both put in work in the mound for the Pros in the first game. VanCleave pitched six innings and finished with 10 strikeouts on five hits and two runs surrendered.

Beil pitched one inning, striking out one batter and giving up one hit. Both pitchers allowed two runs.

The second game of the doubleheader didn’t go the way of the Pros, who fell 10-6 in eight innings after some late game heroics by the Tigerscots.

The Pros nursed a 1-0 lead for most of the game before a pair of homers in the top of the sixth saw the Tigerscots take their first lead at 3-1.

The Pros would tie the game at 3-3 in the bottom of the sixth inning to head into the seventh in a winner-take-all scenario. Neither team would score in the seventh, although the Pros did have a chance to end the game before it got into extra innings.

The Pros had a baserunner on second in the bottom of the inning but failed to bring him home, setting the stage for extra baseball. A seven-run offensive explosion by Weston in the eighth would give the Tigerscots a 10-3 advantage with just a half an inning for the Pros to rally.

The Pros scored three runs of their own in the bottom of the eighth, but the deficit was just too much to overcome. The Pros would fall 10-6 in the second game to send the Tigerscots back to Athena with a 1-1 split of the doubleheader.

Mason Benge led the Pros offensively in the second game, finishing 1-2 at the plate with a pair of RBIs. Beil, Riddick Hutchison and Charley Knowles each finished with an RBI for the Pros.

The Pros used five pitchers in the game, with Weston Suchorski putting in the most work. Suchorski pitched just over five innings, striking out six batters while surrendering two hits along with two runs.

Hutchison put in just over an inning’s worth of work, giving up five runs while striking out one batter. Lukas Blood, Baryn Huerta and Kingdon Kirby each pitched less than an inning for the Pros.

Grant Union head baseball coach RC Huerta said teams within 1A/2A Special District 7 are all good teams and you can’t take anybody lightly. “ Teams in our league, they’re always good. You gotta keep your guard up for them, mad respect to the Tigerscots for coming to play,” he said.

The split leaves the Pros at 8-4 on the season with a 4-2 league record. The team will be in action next when they travel to Nyssa on Thursday, April 20. The game is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. Mountain time.