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Crater sweeps away Roseburg By DON HUNT CENTRAL POINT - It's a dogfight for the Southern Oregon Conference baseball championship, and the Crater Comets are right in the thick of it. Ryan Gipson and David Sills delivered game-winning hits Saturday at Anhorn Field as the Comets swept a crucial doubleheader from Roseburg. The scores were 4-3 in nine innings and 7-6. The twin wins improved the Comets to 16-5 overall and 6-4 in the SOC, just two games in back of front-running South Medford with four games to play. The Comets meet the Panthers next Saturday in a noon twin bill at Anhorn before finishing the regular season April 12 against North Medford. "This thing is wide open," Crater coach Chuck Dominiak said of the conference race. "Winning both games today puts us in a good position." With seven new starters in its lineup from a year ago, when Crater won the Class 4A state championship, the Comets haven't been able to dominate the competition. But they secured their first conference doubleheader sweep of the season Saturday, and it came over the SOC preseason favorite. "Beating Roseburg twice definitely helps our confidence," said Crater center fielder Ken Strate, one of the few holdovers from last season's squad, who went 6-for-8 on the day. "We've got a lot of young guys who haven't played varsity ball until this year, but we're starting to come together as a team. "We've got guys who are coming through in the clutch." One of them was Sills. The junior outfielder went 3-for-4 in the second game, including the game-winning hit in the bottom of the seventh inning. With the bases loaded and two outs, the speedy Sills pounded a high-hopping grounder that he beat out for a hit. In the meantime, Strate raced home from third base with the winning run. "I was just trying to put the ball in play and make something happen," said Sills, who did a back flip moments after the game ended. "Once I got that high hop, I knew there was no way they were going to throw me out." The Comets held a 6-3 lead heading into the top of the seventh when Roseburg's Ole Sheldon drilled an RBI double and David Powell followed with a two-run triple that tied the game. The Indians then had a chance to take the lead, but Derek Petersen - who pitched all nine innings for the Comets in Game 1 - relieved Chris Pettegrew and induced Cory Baird into an inning-ending ground out. Petersen, who threw a five-hitter in the opening game, picked up victories in each game to improve his record to 6-2. "I was really pumped up today," Petersen said. "Roseburg was picked to win the league and that just adds to the excitement." The Comets had to come from behind twice in the first game, scoring a run in the bottom of the seventh to send it into extra innings and then scoring twice in the bottom of the ninth to win it. The hero in Game 1 was Gipson, who pounded a two-run double to right-center field that scored Shane Lumpkin and Strate with the winning runs. "We're really starting to believe in ourselves," said Dominiak, whose team has made the state playoffs five straight years. "At the start of the year, we spent a lot of time trying to determine where to put kids in the field and in the batting order. "But now we're settled in and we're getting to be a confident team. "It's fun to watch." The Indians, meanwhile, lost their third and fourth games in a row to slip to 5-5 in the SOC and 16-6 overall. The four losses - two to Crater and two to North Medford - have come by a single run. "We lost six one-run games in conference play last year and thought we'd put that behind us," Roseburg coach Ron Goodell said. "But it's happening again. We're just not getting it done at crunch time." The Indians exacerbated their woes by committing several base-running errors. One runner was picked off first base, two others were thrown out attempting to take an extra base and one runner held up at third after Goodell had signaled for him to run home. "The mental mistakes are costing us, no question about it," Goodell said. "When you're in a tight game against good teams, one mistake can get you beat." Roseburg finishes its season at home with doubleheaders against Grants Pass and South Medford. FIRST GAME Roseburg ......................................... 200 000 001 - 3 5 1 Crater ............................................. 100 000 102 - 4 11 1 McInerney and Baird; Petersen and Maddocks. W - Petersen (6-2). L - McInerney (4-2). 2B - R: Myhre; C: Gipson, Maddocks. SECOND GAME Roseburg ............................................021 000 3 - 6 12 0 Crater ..................................................003 012 1 - 7 13 3 Zumwalt and Baird; Pettegrew, Petersen (7) and Maddocks. W - Petersen (6-2). L - Zumwalt (3-2). 2B - R: Goodell, Zumwalt, Sheldon 2; C - Strate, Maddocks. 3B - R: Powell. HR - C: Strate. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.