Summer Hawks continue strong play

CHENEY-The Cheney Summer Hawks are finding success on the diamond, sporting a 10–5 record heading toward the Wood Bat Classic Tournament on the Fourth of July weekend. The team split a doubleheader with Lakeside on Monday, June 27 and has chalked up "Ws" in three of its past five games.

Cheney 6, 3

Lakeside 3, 4

The Summer Hawks took the first game of the twin bill, 6–3. Cheney got out of the game early, sending 10 batters to the plate and pushing four runs across the dish in the bottom of the first inning.

The Summer Hawks rang up two more in the home half of the second to stretch their lead to 6–0.

Lakeside erased the goose egg off the board, posting a run in the top of the third. The visitors added a run in the top of the fifth and sixth inning to make a game of it, 6–3. Cheney's bats were silent from the second inning, but the Summer Hawks held on for the win.

Clayton Wood led the Cheney assault going 2-for-3 at the plate and 2 runs scored. Tate Heuschkel got the start and the win on the bump, pitching two and two-thirds innings, giving up one run off three hits. Coach Rob Beamer had him on a pitch count.

"We pulled him after 45 pitches-we have all our pitches on the same count," Beamer said. "We've got a double header on Wednesday, and then play three games over the Fourth of July weekend so we're trying to keep all of our guys fresh as possible."

The second game of the doubleheader was scoreless through two innings. Lakeside hung a run on the board in the top of the third. Cheney answered with two in the bottom of the frame and then added one run in the bottom of the fourth to make it 3-1 Summer Hawks.

Lakeside knotted it at 3-all with two runs in the top of the fifth, then regained the lead with a run in the top of the seventh.

Cheney threatened in the bottom of the seventh with two on and one out but could not capitalize and dropped the contest, 4-3.

Coleman Randles got the start and pitched three strong innings, giving up one run off one hit. Jace Vaga came on in relief, tossing two innings of two-hit ball. Marcus Belarde closed out the final two innings and was tagged with the loss.

"We got great pitching from Tate in the first game, got some great hits and were very aggressive on the base path," Beamer said. "The second game we had solid pitching but with so many games coming up, we had to juggle our lineup and the big hits just didn't happen."

Cheney was back at it, taking on the Coeur d' Alene Lumbermen in doubleheader action on Wednesday, June 29. The results were unavailable at press time. Look for the recap in the July 7 edition of the Cheney Free Press.

Shadle Park 5

Cheney 3

Six errors led to the demise in this one as Shadle Park scored three unearned runs in the game. Shadle Park led 2–0 after two innings were in the books. Cheney leveled it 2-all with two runs in the top of the fourth. Shadle Park posted a run in the bottom of the fourth, fifth and sixth innings to go up top 5-2. The Summer Hawks got one back in the top of the seventh to make it 5–3. 

Cheney 7

Lewis & Clark 6

Tank Best's RBI bunt down the first baseline in the bottom of the ninth brought Clayton Wood home with the winning run and Cheney completed a 7-6 come from behind win over Lewis & Clark on the Summer Hawks diamond Wednesday, June 22.

Lewis & Clark led 4–2 after two innings were in the books. Cheney drew even, 4-4, with two runs in the bottom of the third and then added a run in the fifth and sixth inning to take its first lead of the game, 6–4. Lewis & Clark knotted it 6-all in the top of the seventh. The score held up until the bottom of the ninth, when Cheney got the walk-off bunt to end the game. This one was closer than it should've been, with the Summer Hawks committing five errors in the contest resulting in four unearned runs.