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By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter 

Cheney's A Legion team finishes with win, but miss playoffs

Baseball bounces don’t go SummerHawks way

 

Last updated 7/25/2013 at 10:57am



Having played baseball most all his life, Kent Weatherbee knows the game is one of bounces.

Some go your way while others do not.

That seemed to be the lesson the rookie head coach for Cheney’s SummerHawk A team took away from his season that ended with his team missing the playoffs. Cheney finished 6-14 overall and 4-8 in league play.

After a series of tough frustrating losses, Weatherbee got a pleasing effort in the season finale July 12 in a 3-0 win over Coeur d’Alene. Chance Gleave had a pair of hits while Logan Pratt had a hit and two RBIs. Jacob Whitely pitched a complete game shutout. “He did what’s he’s been doing all year and that’s throwing strikes.”

That memorable outing came on the heels of a pair of big offensive contests against Mead where Cheney split a doubleheader winning 13-9 before losing 13-12 on July 11 at home. “Both games the offense was there,” Weatherbee said, especially Chris Fuentes who had seven RBIs in the two games. “He came up big in the clutch this year.”

Gleave had three hits, including a double, and scored three runs. Whiteley had two hits and scored three times in the win.

“It was kind of an ugly game across the board,” Weatherbee said. But with players in new positions virtually everywhere on the field some miscues were expected.

Notable in the 13-12 loss was Kyle Jones’ three-run home run in the third inning which tied the game at 7-7.  “He really smashed the ball as he hit a line drive over the right field fence,” Weatherbee said of his team’s first and only homer of the season.

The offense was still clicking for Cheney July 9 in an 11-7 loss to University in a game Weatherbee called, “The toughest loss of the season.” The SummerHawks battled back from a 5-3 deficit, took the lead in the seventh, 7-5, and had two outs and two strikes on what most people thought would be the final out. U-Hi would score six runs with two outs to take the lead and eventually win.

Jones had three hits, including a pair of doubles.  Kowalski had an RBI on a suicide squeeze.  Seven different players scored: Trey Martin, Dave Winters, Brayden Butikofer, Pratt, Jones, Gleave and Kowalski.  

“I think it was a good season for us,” Weatherbee said. “There were five or six games that could have gone the other way that we probably could have or should have won.”

He said Cheney would hit line drives right at guys while the opponents hit the seeing-eye singles. “Everything that’s borderline goes their way and doesn’t go ours.”

“I had a lot of fun this year,” Weatherbee, a current Eastern Washington University student said. “I really had a blast, they were good kids and fun to coach.”

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.

 

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