With almost every league matchup left this season big for the Rochester baseball team, the Warriors picked up two huge wins at home in a doubleheader with Aberdeen Saturday, 6-1 and 7-5.
Electing to save ace pitcher Braden Hartley for matchups later next week against W.F. West and Tumwater, the Warriors’ Hyde Parrish and Tony Groninger stepped up in a big way on the mound in both games.
In the first game, Parrish went 6 ⅓ innings, allowing just one earned run on three hits with four strikeouts and two walks in a 6-1 win. Tate Quarnstrom went 2 for 4 at the plate with an RBI and Hartley went 2 for 3 with a double and a run scored.
“Hyde was phenomenal today,” Warriors coach Brad Quarnstrom said. “He was very efficient and threw around the strike zone the entire game.”
In the second game, the Warriors went by committee on the mound until the third inning, when Groninger stepped in relief of Jyson O’Conner and Quarnstrom to throw 4 ⅔ innings with no earned runs on four hits and seven strikeouts.
Trailing 5-0 in the bottom of the third inning, the Warriors kept chipping away at the lead until a four run burst in the fifth, set up by Parrish’s double that scored two and gave Rochester the lead for good, 7-5.
“Our guys played really well today,” Brad Quarnstrom said. “We’ve backed ourselves into a corner a bit, and we have to dig ourselves out over the next couple of weeks.”
The Warriors will take on W.F. West at home on Monday looking to win the season series after a 2-1 victory last week, and then play Tumwater on Tuesday and Wednesday.
