Riverdogs hang tough at Whitefish wood bat tourney

They most often play against teams from much bigger population areas, which means a deeper player pool in which to dive.

The math is simple: more young men, more chance of all-star caliber players and greater overall depth.

But one of the things math wizards cannot measure is heart.

Such is the nature of Clark Fork Valley Riverdogs Legion baseball.

With one of the smallest population bases in Montana, which in itself has less people than many large cities from which to select players, the Riverdogs routinely play out of their league, literally, but not when it comes to heart.

So as the regular season heads down the home stretch, the Dogs 17-17 season mark may not seem impressive unless you look at the numbers.

Clearly, the Clark Fork bunch has players who could play for any team in the state, including the “big boys” from the upper class AA and A leagues.

At the recent Ed Gallo Wood Bat Classic tournament in Whitefish this past week, the Riverdogs emerged with a 1-3 mark. Dig deeper and you find the three losses were at the hands of a pair of teams from Spokane and one from the Kalispell area.

They opened the tournament with a win against a team from Missoula.

Bring ‘em on, says head coach Jon Zigler, who in one stretch a few weeks ago had the bare minimum nine players to put on the field of play.

Still, they have won as many as they have lost.

And Zigler would be the last to accept population base as an “excuse” for a season record many teams would gladly take at this point in the year.

This weekend, the Dogs come home to play a pair of July 2 games at Amundson Sports Complex. That in itself is a rare appearance for a team that was reformed just last year in a so far successful attempt to bring quality baseball to the Plains region.

“Sometimes we do play teams that seem a bit out of our league,” Zigler said, “but it gives the guys good experience against tough competition”.

This past weekend all those factors were in play.

The Dogs opened the tournament Thursday with an important 7-4 win over the Missoula Impact, a team in their own league.

Clark Fork gave up a run in the top of the first, then came back and tied things up in the bottom of the inning. They took the lead in the bottom of the second inning with a solo run, then added three more in the bottom of the fourth to go up 5-1.

The Impact, who had swamped the Dogs 21-8 a week earlier, made things interesting with three runs in the top half of the fifth inning but that was all the runs they would score the rest of the way as starting pitcher Bean Plakke and reliever Garth Parker combined to hold the Impact at bay and secure the tournament opening win.

Plakke threw five innings, allowing six hits and four runs while striking out a pair. Parker came on in the sixth and tossed two no-hit innings while striking out three to preserve the win.

Both Parker and Plakke drove in a run each for the Dogs, while third baseman Alessi Rolando went two for four at the plate and also drove in a run.

The win over Missoula pushed the Dogs season record to 17-14.

Next up for Clark Fork was a game with the Spokane-area upper division team Mead Panthers that was a pitching duel from start to finish. And while Mead came away with a narrow 3-2 victory, Riverdogs’ pitcher Jack Taylor had an impressive outing on the mound.

Taylor pitched the entire eight inning of the extra-inning game, allowing just four hits while striking out a season-high 11 Panthers batters.

Mead got on the scoreboard first with a pair of runs in the top of inning number three. The Riverdogs got solo runs in the bottom of innings six and seven to tie the score at two and send it into extra innings. Mead then managed a single run in the top of the eighth frame and held on for the 3-2 win.

Plakke and Kody Carter each drove in a run for the Dogs, but it was not enough to overcome the Panthers, who also got strong pitching during the game.

Rolando and Taylor each had a pair of hits as the Dogs outhit Mead 7-4.

“Jack Taylor pitched a fantastic game,” coach Zigler said. “We just couldn’t get the timely hits to drive in runs. We stranded 10 guys on base and you’re not going to win if you do that”.

Saturday the Riverdogs once again squared off against a Spokane opponent, this time the traditionally tough Spokane Dodgers got seven innings of shutout baseball from C. Hendren, who allowed just two hits and struck out four Riverdogs.

Clark Fork pitchers Trenis McDonald, who pitched just the first innning, allowing just one hit, before giving way to Parker, who struck out seven Spokane batters in his five innings of work.

Spokane plated one run in the bottom of the third, then added two more in their half of the fifth inning to take a 3-0 lead. Neither team scored the rest of the way as the Dodgers advanced to the tournament championship game with the victory.

The loss may prove to be more costly than thought as standout catcher Plakke was pulled from the game in the early innings due to a flare up of a possible broken bone in his hand. Plakke was scheduled to be X-rayed this past Monday. Plakke got one of the Riverdogs’ two hits before leaving the game.

Still, Zigler found reason for optimism following the loss to the Dodgers.

“We lost a pitching duel to the powerhouse Dodgers,” he said. “Parker hurled a tremendous game but our offense couldn’t break through. I’m proud of our guys. We’ve faced some great pitching in this tournament and we’ve only given up 10 runs in three games. Our pitchers are hitting their strides, the boys could have been 3-0 in this tournament but we just haven’t been able to get the big hits with runners on base”.

After three games in three days against top-notch competition, the Dogs ran into the Glacier Twins in a game that opened with all indications it would be a slugfest. Glacier struck for four runs in the top of the first inning, only to watch as the Dogs scored three of their own in the bottom of the initial inning. Infielder Eli Ratliff drove in two runs with a double in the first, but the three runs total would be all they could produce in what turned into a 13-3 loss to the local team.

Glacier added two runs in the top of each of the next three innings, then tacked on three more in the fifth as they cruised to the Sunday afternoon win.

Riverdogs pitching surrendered 13 hits during the game, which was halted after five innings by the 10-run Mercy Rule.

The Riverdogs will be hoping for good news concerning Plakke, who as of June 14 was second on the team in On Base Percentage and second in batting average, hitting at a .519 clip.

Taylor led the team in both categories, with a .600 OBP and a blistering .536 batting average going into the stretch run of the season.

Next up for the Riverdogs is a rare home appearance, featuring three area teams.

The Dogs open the July 2 tournament with a noon game versus the Libby Loggers, then play the North Idaho Lakers in the mini-tournament finale at 5p.m Saturday, in what coach Zigler calls a “full day of great baseball.”