Steers baseball pulls out summer win over Jacksboro

In a back and forth affair this past week, the Graham Steers edged out the Jacksboro Tigers for a 7-6 summer league baseball win.

Each Tuesday throughout June, the Steers will play exhibition games against schools around the area. It’s an opportunity for players on each side to gain valuable experience and begin working with new teammates. 

Varsity members continue to improve their craft while junior varsity players who might be looking to move up will get a chance to show what they can do.

This past Tuesday, June 11, the Steers welcomed the Tigers to Graham for a match-up. Due to the games being unofficial, the teams play with modified rules to keep the game moving.

The teams played 10 innings with each half inning ending with either three outs or when the batting team scored three runs. For the purposes of these write-ups, the first seven innings were unofficially recorded to simulate a regulation high school game.
Both the Steers and Tigers traded the lead throughout the game before Graham took the lead in the bottom half of the sixth inning and held on against Jacksboro in the seventh to secure the win.

Graham had six pitchers take the mound, with each one throwing one inning except for Ty Thompson, who threw two innings. Harison Brockway earned the win late in the game and Tyson Louder came on in the seventh inning to record a one-two-three inning for the save.

Overall in the game, Jacksboro ended up outhitting Graham as the Tigers recorded six hits while the Steers only had three. However, the Steers took advantage of a bevy of walks from Jacksboro pitchers and did their best to be aggressive on the basepaths. 

The Steers led off the game with Thompson getting hit by a pitch, then making his way around the bases on a stolen base, an error on the throw down and a steal of home as part of a double steal.

It didn’t take long for Jacksboro to tie things up in the top half of the second inning. The second batter of the inning walked and moved to third on an error in the next at bat. A wild pitch brought the tying run home to make it 1-1 before pitcher Tripp Mahaney got out of the inning without further damage.

Graham tacked on another run in the fourth inning thanks to another walk, another Jacksboro error and a productive ground out by Mason Milton for a 2-1 lead. But the Tigers answered that run and more in the top of the fifth.

Bruin Wright took the mound for Graham and got two quick outs on back-to-back comebackers. But consecutive singles, a walk and some errors and passed balls led to three runs for the Tigers as they regained a 4-2 lead.

A positive in this game was that Graham was never out of it, despite giving up leads multiple times. In the fifth and sixth innings, the Steers scored five runs on seven walks, two hit by pitches and just one hit.

After a few tumultuous innings for Graham pitchers, Louder came on in the seventh inning with a one-run lead and shut the Tigers down for the save and unofficial Steers victory.

Colter Johnson went 2-for-3 in this game with a hard single and an RBI double to the gap in left-center field. Milton had Graham’s other hit as he finished 1-for-2 with an RBI. Mahaney and Wright each had three walks in three plate appearances and scored one and two runs, respectively.

The Steers will be back in action Tuesday, June 18 as they welcome Iowa Park to Graham for another summer league match-up.