Lakers advance to quarters
Lake Oswego’s Jeff Kremer celebrates after scoring the game’s first run in the third inning of an 8-3 victory over North Salem on Tuesday. The Lakers moved on to play Sheldon in the quarterfinals.
VERN UYETAKE / lake oswego review
Lake Oswego’s baseball team took care of business plain and simple on Tuesday against North Salem.
It wasn’t a flawless effort by the Lakers but it was more than enough as the team earned an 8-3 decision and advanced to the quarterfinals.
Tom Zarosinski kept North Salem off balanced for the majority of the game and threw a complete game on 103 pitches to earn the win.
The Laker bats took a couple of innings to heat up but the team scored in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth inning to jump out to a commanding 7-0 lead.
Zarosinski pitched out of trouble in the top of the first inning. With a runner on second and one out he tallied a strike out and then, with runners on the corners, he coaxed a ground out to keep North Salem off the board.
Right-fielder Brian Zinsmeister made a pair of nice catches in the top of the second to thwart North Salem in the second inning and the Lakers broke through in the bottom of the third.
Jeff Kremer drew a one-out walk and moved to second on the first of what would be four balk calls in the game.
A walk to Joe Clark set up an RBI double from Nick Rulli to put the Lakers on the board. Zinsmeister followed with a two-out walk and Tyler Campbell then belted a two-run single.
“Tyler had a big day for us. Once we settled in we started putting the ball in play,” Laker coach Jake Anders said.
Lake Oswego scored once more in the fourth when Chad Kjemhus hit an RBI infield single that scored Hayden Reece.
And, in the bottom of the fifth, the Lakers blew the game open with another three-run inning.
Zinsmeister led off and was hit by a pitch and Campbell followed with a single. Ryan Attridge plated a run on a groundout and Brock Pellow followed with an RBI double.
Pellow would later score on another balk to make it a 7-0 game.
In the top of the sixth, North Salem threatened to make an impressive rally. The team has made its living at the plate this year and it was able to string together some hits for the first time all game.
North Salem led off with a double and the runner moved to third on a balk.
The following batter scored him with a single and Zarosinski walked the next batter.
A single then loaded the bases with no outs.
Zarosinski then got the next batter to fly out to shallow centerfield but balked in a run moments later.
But the Laker pitcher buckled down and came up with a strike out and a ground out to get out of the inning with only two runs being scored.
“We just told the guys that they’ve been here before and they know what it takes. They know how to execute and I thought we came in focused today,” Anders said.
Lake Oswego picked up one more insurance run in the sixth when Attridge plated Rulli with a sacrifice fly.
Zarosinski gave up a towering solo home run with two outs in the seventh inning but finished the game as the Lakers advanced.
Lake Oswego will face Sheldon at home on Friday in the quarterfinals at 5 p.m.
“It’s always nice to have a home game. We had a good crowd out here today and we’re hoping for the same on Friday,” Anders said.