Geist, Griffons conquer Generals

Ralph Pokorny/Daily Mail Trevor Geist connected with this swing for a grand slam home run in the second inning of Thursday's game with the Ozark Generals. The Griffons play the El Dorado Broncos tonight and Saturday at 7:00 and complete the three game series at 2 p.m. Sunday.

The Nevada Griffons fought their way to an impressive victory over the Springfield Generals last night.

Nevada's starting pitcher, Mike Robinson pitched four solid innings, allowing no runs on five hits with five strikeouts and no walks. The superb effort given by the starting pitcher seemed to give the Griffons' offense an added spark, leading to six runs on six hits in the first four frames. The Griffons were also aided with five walks, three stolen bases and a hit batter within that same stretch.

The Griffons' offense really started to come to life at the hands of Trevor Geist, who bombed a grand slam in the second inning, capping off a five run rally in the inning for Nevada that included four walks and two hits. "That was one of the highest and farthest hit balls I've seen," said coach John Hill of Geist's homer.

The top half of that inning was the only time in his outing that Griffons starter began to stumble a bit. After giving up a lead-off triple to Jon Breedlove, Robinson seemed to get a little rocked, but was able to strike out the next batter, but gave up a base hit in the inning, allowing Breedlove to score.

The third inning was fairly quiet for both sides, with Robinson getting back under control and striking out two batters and not allowing a run in the inning, despite giving up two hits. Nevada's offense was shut down completely in the bottom half of the inning, not managing even a hit while striking out once.

The Generals once again threatened in the fourth, with a lead-off hit from the dangerous runner, Breedlove. But, Nevada was quickly able to stifle the threat when Robinson notched another strikeout and Breedlove was caught oblivious on the base path and picked off. Nevada answered in the bottom half of the frame with three stolen bases, along with a hit batter, a walk, and two hits, eventually resulting in another run tacking on to the Griffon's lead.

Nevada brought out their first relief pitcher of the night in the fifth, Alex Kent. His outing was somewhat rocky, lasting one inning and resulting in two runs on one hit for Springfield. Neither run that Kent allowed was earned, though, both having come after an error at third base.

The Springfield offense became a little stagnant from that point on, threatening with two stolen bases and a hit batter in the next two innings, but only coming up with one run for the remainder of the game after two wild pitches by Nevada's Justin Aragon in the eighth inning. Nevada exploited this offensive stagnance heavily in the seventh inning with a continued fire of their own, scoring two runs on two hits with three stolen bases.

By the end of the game, Nevada had put up 10 runs on 10 hits with four stolen bases and eight walks to just four runs on 7 hits with two stolen bases and three walks for Springfield. And, Nevada's hitters struck out just five times while the Generals went down on strikes 13 times.

In a post game interview, Griffons head coach John Hill said that he really wanted five innings and a win from his starter, but has set very strict pitch counts that he feels he must stick to in order to keep his pitchers going. When questioned about the performance of Trevor Geist, who was hit by two pitches and finished the game with a grand slam and two runs scored, along with two strikeouts from the flawless ninth inning that he pitched, Hill said, "That's just Trevor. Trevor works hard, does his daily work and never skips."

Last night's win pushes the Griffon's overall season record up to 10-3. Their next contest will be tonight at Lyons Stadium against the El Dorado, Kan Broncos.