Elks Magical Moment Produces Second Walk-Off Win Over Walla Walla
Maddox Molony scored the third walk-off winning run for the Elks this season to clinch the series win over Walla Walla. (Andrew Green)
Bend, OR. - Magical, unbelievable, and miraculous are the words that come to mind when describing the thrilling ending Sunday to an incredible series between the Bend Elks and Walla Walla Sweets.
In the opening game of the series, Ty Silva delivered a walk-off single to score Maddox Molony and give the Elks the 7-6 win. Flash forward to the series finale in the bottom of the 11th inning, and history repeated itself. With Silva at the plate and Molony at third, and Josh Aribal (the pitcher who gave up the hit to Silva in game one) on the mound, Bend walked it off again as Aribal airmailed a pitch to the backstop, allowing Molony to score the 6-5 winning run that gave the Elks the hard-fought series victory over Walla Walla.
Molony has scored the winning run for the Elks in all three walk-offs for Bend this season. Sunday marked the first extra-inning victory for the Elks since the 2022 opening weekend in the series finale against the Wenatchee AppleSox. Ironically, the Elks just so happened to win that game on a walk-off in the bottom of the 11th inning.
As exciting as the finish to the game was, the Elks should have never let it get to that point. Bend had a 5-0 lead over Walla Walla for a good bulk of the game as the Elks put up four runs in the first inning on three RBI hits from Steven Meier, Ruben Cedillo, and Bennett Thompson, plus a sacrifice fly from Avery Ortiz. The Elks tacked on one more insurance run with another RBI knock for Meier.
Yet, that would be the last the Elks would score until the walk-off run, as Sweets' pitching slowed things down while the Walla Walla offense took advantage of several uncharacteristic Bend errors. The Sweets would score five unanswered runs, all of which were unearned as a result of four slip-ups by the Elks infield. The big blow came in the seventh when Walla Walla scored four runs, three of which were with two outs to tie the game and set up what turned out to be an extra-inning dual for the ages.
Steven Meier, Bennett Thompson, and Elijah Jackson combined for six of the Elks' nine hits. Robert Orloski (1-0) earned the win after a phenomenal six innings on the bump, surrendering just three hits and one unearned run while striking out four batters.
Bend (13-15, 10-14) gets the day off Monday before kicking off its final series of the first half on the Fourth of July against the Yakima Valley Pippins (11-18, 10-17). First pitch Tuesday at Vince Genna Stadium is at 6:35 p.m.
