EUGENE — Despite missing two regular starters, the Roseburg High School baseball team got plenty of help from the rest of the dugout in a Southwest Conference sweep of the Willamette Wolverines on Saturday.
The Indians held off the Wolverines for a 6-4 win in the opener at Floyd Ogden Field at Willamette High School and then Jake Johnson tossed a complete game shutout to lead Roseburg to a 10-0 win in the nightcap.
Austin Takahashi and Jayce Wilder, two mainstays in the starting lineup, sat out the games due to injury and illness.
Despite those absences, Roseburg (13-3, 6-2 SWC) was carried by superb starting pitching, errorless defense and timely hitting by players taking on bigger roles.
“The ability of our players to come in and take advantage of their opportunities and have big days for us today is huge,” Roseburg coach Troy Thompson said. “We came out of it with a couple of wins that we had to have and those (role players) were big contributors to that, as well as everybody else that was here. It takes us all and we proved that today.”
Evan Corbin tossed his sixth complete game victory of the season in the Game 1 win. The senior right-hander managed to work around nine hits by Willamette (3-11, 1-7).
He finished with six strikeouts, no walks and one hit batter to improve his record to 6-0 on the year.
The Roseburg offense sputtered along at the start, but manufactured a run to tie the game 1-1 in the second thanks to a walk and two wild pitches by Willamette starter Ryan Prescott.
The senior left-hander held Roseburg without a until the third inning and finished with 10 strikeouts, but he also issued six walks over just 5 1/3 innings leading to opportunities for the Indians.
A leadoff walk to Eli Jacobs in the fifth led to the go-ahead run scoring later in the frame on a two-run single by Corbin. Roseburg stretched the lead to 6-1 with three more runs in the sixth on a single by Noah Fisk and a two-run double by Brooks Avery.
Those insurance runs proved to be big as Willamette went on to score three runs in the bottom half of the sixth, capped by a two-run home run by Travis Grantom.
Corbin slammed the door on any possible Willamette comeback by retiring the Wolverines in order in the seventh on just four pitches.
Corbin and Avery both had two hits and two RBIs in the opener and both tacked on more in the nightcap.
Roseburg took a 1-0 lead on a sacrifice fly by Corbin in the first and Avery made it a 3-0 score with a sacrifice fly in the second.
The Indians added two more runs in the third on a single by Brayden Russell and a sacrifice fly by Fisk.
Fisk, who started at second base with Takahashi out, was 3-for-3 with two RBIs and two runs in the second game.
“It’s a team sport. It’s not just one person. It takes every player, whether they’re on the bench for a couple of innings and they come in. You just have to be ready to do your part for the team,” said Fisk, who had just nine plate appearances prior to Saturday’s twin bill.
Johnson had his second consecutive complete-game shutout. He scattered six hits, while striking out seven. Willamette was 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
Roseburg moved to within one game of North Medford for first place in the Southwest Conference standings. The Indians and Black Tornado square off for the first time this year on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. in Medford.
First Game
Roseburg 010 023 0 — 6 6 0
Willamette 100 003 0 — 4 9 3
Corbin and Burke; Prescott, Banville (6) and Koffler. W — Corbin (6-0). L — Prescott. 2B — Avery (R), Garboden (W), Grantom (W). HR — Grantom (W).
Second Game
Roseburg 122 001 4 — 10 8 0
Willamette 000 000 0 — 0 6 3
Johnson and Burke; Lucas, Peterson (5), Garboden (6), Cox (7) and Koffler. W — Johnson (3-1). L — Lucas. 2B — Corbin (R), Prescott (W), Garboden (W).
