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Griffons defeat Ozark in game 1 of twinbill
By Ralph Pokorny
Nevada Daily Mail
The Nevada Griffons used four pitchers, who faced a total of 47 Ozark General's batters over the course of nine innings and the final outcome of the Wednesday night's first of two games with the 6-13 Ozark Generals came down to the final pitch of the game to give the Griffons a 8-5 win.
Nick Soldano pitched five innings, giving up three hits and two runs, striking out four batters, before Laurent Zenoni came in for 1.2 inning, allowing seven hits and five runs.
Zack Juliano pitched two innings for the win, giving up five hits and no runs, loading the bases with two outs and David Perkins at the plate for Chris Fitzpatrick deal with.
Perkins hit a ground ball behind second base where Griffons short stop Stuart Jeck fielded the ball and threw to second for the final out.
The Griffons had easily outdistanced the Generals for most of the game, jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a two RBI home run by Peter Barrow that also scored Jeck and added a third run in the third inning on a solo homerun by Reed Watson for a 3-0 lead.
The Griffons carried that lead into the sixth inning when the Generals David Perkins hit a solo home run to narrow the lead to 3-1 to which the Griffons responded by adding five runs of their own in the sixth.
Gavin Stark led off with a triple to left field and AJ Krist was hit by a pitch. Brad Wilson hit a single and stole second, Krist moved to third and Wilson scored for a 4-1 lead.
Reed Watson hit a two RBI double to score Krist and Wilson, for a 6-1 lead.
Watson stole third on a wild pitch to Griffons catcher Quaid McKinnon and scored on a two RBI home run by McKinnon for a 8-1 lead.
The Generals came back with four runs in the seventh to narrow the gap to 8-5 for the final score.
The Griffons, 12-6 for the season play a non-league game tonight with the Neosho Dirtbags, in Neosho and then play a MINK League Friday with the Joplin Outlaws in Joplin.
And Saturday and Sunday nights the Griffons play the Outlaws at Lyons Stadium for Parents Weekend.
The Griffons are still collecting useable baseball equipment and monetary donations to be presented to the Outlaws during the weekends games. The equipment will be given to the Joplin Little League teams to help budding players who lost their equipment during the May tornado and the money will go the Outlaws to help defray expenses, since they have eliminated their gate fee this to allow more Joplin residents to enjoy baseball games as a diversion from the tornado aftermath.