Bend best Blacks Bears in rubber game
Bend pitching continued to provide as Tyler Wood twirled a six inning scoreless gem. (Andrew Forhan)
Longview, WA - Bend ran away with the rubber game against Cowlitz Thursday defeating the Black Bears 7-3 for the Elks 11th win in their last 12 games.
Bend built up an early lead that would be sustained through the entirety of the ball game through partnership with its phenomenal pitching.
The Elks struck in the opening frame for the second straight night on a Luke Recce RBI double.
Bend stretched the lead by a trio in the third on an Easton Amundson two-run base hit plus a diversion created by Amundson on a delayed steal that allowed Reece to score.
The Elks would go scoreless over the subsequent three frames, as would Cowlitz, who hung zeros in the previous third of the ball game.
Tyler Wood kept the scoreboard nice and clean against the Black Bears, tossing six shutout innings with six strikeouts for his third and final win of the season.
The WCL All-Star out of U.C. Davis finishes his first season in Bend atop the club in strikeouts with 31 and will look to show out one last time in an Elks jersey in 2024 on the bump in Bellingham.
The Black Bears' errors, which were so prevalent the night before, would resurface in the series finale as Bend forced back-to-back throwing errors on consecutive bunts by Easton Talt and Abbrie Covarrubias to bring home the first of two runs in the seventh.
Cowlitz would ultimately end the Elks shutout hopes scoring three runs across the eighth and ninth innings, but it would be too little too late for the Black Bears as Bend would finish on top in the series.
The Elks have now won four of their five road series this season and will bring their most momentum this decade back across the Columbia River into a huge series against the second-place team in the West Coast League South, the Portland Pickles.
Bend sits 2.5 games back of Portland and would need to sweep to Pickles to overtake them for the second-place spot in the WCL South.
The high-stakes matchup begins Friday at 7:05 p.m. at Walker Stadium. You can tune into all the action on the Pickles live stream or listen to the "Voice of the Elks" Blake Niemann on the Bend Elks Radio Network.
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