Tuesday, August 19, 1997

WhiteWings wallop Abilene, 12-3

By LANCE FLEMING

Staff Writer

The good news is that the Abilene Prairie Dogs' season-long death march drew one step closer to conclusion Monday night at Scott Field.

The bad news is that they and 1,006 of their fans were forced to endure one of their worst performances of the season in a 12-3 loss to Rio Grande Valley.

Abilene, which was eliminated from any kind of contention for the Texas-Louisiana League playoffs Sunday night, will close out the home portion of the 1997 season tonight at 7:05 p.m. against the WhiteWings.

After committing four errors Monday night, the Prairie Dogs can only hope tonight's game goes better than Monday's.

The WhiteWings pounded out 20 hits Monday night, one short of the club record of 21, set on Aug. 27, 1995, against Amarillo. Every player in the Rio Grande Valley lineup had a hit, including three by Matt Hobbie, Derek Vaughn and Bryan Warner.

Warner drove in five runs, giving him 90 RBI for the season, five short of Kevin Tahan's league record of 95 that he set in 1995. He also went 3 for 6, raising his batting average to .395 on the season.

His closest pursuer, Abilene's Jason McClure is at .390 after going 2 for 4 Monday night.

Rio Grande didn't score in bunches; rather it preferred to kill Abilene slowly with one run at a time.

The WhiteWings scored one run in the first and one in the second and two more in the fourth to take a 4-0 lead.

It could have been worse, because Abilene starting pitcher John Baack gave up 11 hits in the first four innings and 14 altogether. However, he got out of a bases-loaded jam in the second when he coaxed Vaughn into an inning-ending double play.

The Wings got just two runs in the second when first baseman started a double play with an unassisted play at first and then threw home to get Chuck Cox with the bases loaded. The Dogs threw out another runner at the plate in the fifth, getting out of that inning without giving up a run.

Rio Grande broke the game open in the sixth when Warner tripled home three runs to make it a 7-1 game. Pat Koerner followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 8-1. The Valley got two more runs in the seventh and two in the ninth to close out its scoring.

Abilene got a run in the third on Jason Keith's RBI groundout, a run int he sixth on a Darryl Monroe RBI single, and a run in the ninth on McClure's RBI single.

But the Dogs managed just six hits and struck out six times against Rio Grande Valley starter and winner Scott Marquardt (7-6).