Jacob Langham of CHS baseball

The Coffee County Red Raider baseball traveled to McMinnville on Thursday for a non-district doubleheader with Warren County.  The 2 teams agreed to move Friday’s game, scheduled to be played at Powers Field, to Thursday night following the regularly scheduled game with the Pioneers.   Coffee County needed a pair of come from behind rallies but ended up settling for a doubleheader split.  The Raiders lost the first game 8 to 7 before winning the nightcap 6 to 5.

In the first game, a run in the first inning by Coffee County was quickly eclipsed as Warren County plated 5 runs of their own in the bottom of the first.  In a game you heard here on Thunder Radio, Coffee County battled back to take the lead in the 3^rd inning with 5 runs of their own.  Grant Sadler had the big knock as he drilled a 3 run tater.  Warren County scored 3 in the 5^th inning to retake the lead for good.  Jacob Langham finished with 3 hits, including a double, and 3 runs scored.  Sadler was named the Crazy Daisies player of the game.

In the nightcap, Warren County again started strong plating 3 runs in the first inning.  They extended their lead to 4 in the 4^th inning before Coffee County rallied to tie the game in the 5^th at 4 runs apiece.  After Warren County retook the lead in the top of the 6th, Coffee County found the moxie to but the Pioneers away.  Jacob Duncan had an RBI single in the 6^th to tie the game and Langham delivered an RBI double to plate the winning run.  Langham once again finished the game with 2 singles and a double as the junior shortstop drove in 2 runs.   Nathaniel Tate pitched 5 innings to get the win for the Raiders.

The Red Raiders will conclude the regular season with a district series against Tullahoma beginning on Tuesday.  Coffee County will host Tullahoma on Tuesday at Powers Field for Senior Night.  That game gets underway at 6 PM with Senior Night Activities taking place at 5:30.  Thunder Radio will be on hand to bring you that broadcast.

Download the broadcast at: www.WMSRradio.com/downloads

Katie Rutledge of CHS softball (Photo by John St. Clair, stclair-sports.com)

The Lady Raider softball team of Coffee County visited Wartrace on Thursday for a non-district game with Cascade.  The matchup was the first ever visit of Coffee County to Cascade in the 28 year history of Coffee County softball.  After being held to 1 hit and losing 1 to 0, it may be another 28 years before the Lady Raiders visit again.

Cascade used the short game effectively by turning a lead-off walk in the 1^st inning into the winning run.  After bunting her to 2^nd base, the Lady Champions got a single to plate the difference maker.  Kaylee Skipper took the loss allowing only 4 hits in the game while striking out 3.  Coffee County, however, struck out 11 times as they were limited to 3 base runners on the night.

Katie Rutledge had Coffee County’s lone hit, a single in the 4^th inning.  Rutledge was stranded at 2^nd base as the Lady Raiders never got a runner to 3^rd in the loss.  Haley Hinshaw and Raven Rogers each got aboard on walks.

Coffee County is scheduled to travel to McMinnville on Friday for a non-district game with Warren County weather permitting.  That game is set to begin at 5 PM and Thunder Radio will be there to bring you all the action.  Lucky Knott will bring you the play-by-play beginning with the pregame show at 4:50.

Blake Hale of Westwood baseball

A quick start by the Liberty baseball team on Thursday, saw Westwood fall in the round of 8 in the Duck River Valley Conference tournament.  Westwood had trouble stringing together hits against the top seeded Patriots in their quarterfinal matchup as they fell by a score of 11 to 1.

After surrendering 4 runs in the first inning, Westwood battled back in the second to score their lone run and make a game of it.  After being shut down in the 2^nd inning, Liberty rallied for a run in the 3^rd before adding 3 more runs in each of the next 2 innings to end the game in the 5^th.

Wyatt Nugent had a pair of hits for Westwood on the game.  Blake Hale scored the Rockets lone run in the loss while Luke Beachboard was credited with the RBI.   Westwood will now fall into the loser’s bracket for a game on Saturday.  That time and opponent is TBD.

The Coffee County Middle School soccer team finished their regular season in Winchester on Thursday with a matchup against North Franklin.  Despite trailing in ball possession, the Raiders took the favored Gators to the half scoreless before falling 2 to 0.

North dominated the time of possession in the matchup but Coffee County managed to fend off a goal from North Franklin until the second half.  The Gators got goals in the 37^th and 52^nd minutes for the winning margin.   Coffee County will now prepare for next week’s conference tournament.  The Raiders opponent and game time will be announced early next week.

Break out the brooms.

Led by two goals from Roman Josi and another stellar performance from Pekka Rinne, the Nashville Predators completed the first sweep in franchise history, knocking off the Chicago Blackhawks in four straight games and winning Game Four, 4-1.

For the second consecutive postseason, the Preds have punched their ticket to Round Two, awaiting the winner of the St. Louis/Minnesota series, and it only took them four games to do so.

“I’m just happy for the guys and the way we played,” Captain Mike Fisher said. “Everyone just kind of chipping in and doing their job. We surprised a lot of people, but not ourselves.”

The Predators came out flying, and if it weren’t for solid play from Chicago goaltender Corey Crawford, could’ve easily had a couple in the first period. Just like in Game Three, however, the opening 20 minutes were scoreless, but this time, it was Nashville who broke through first.

Mere seconds after a Smashville Standing Ovation, Ryan Ellis fed Roman Josi whose shot found the five hole of Crawford to give the Preds a coveted 1-0 lead, a score that held through the second stanza.

Chicago had their chances, but when a Colton Sissons shot hit the post and bounced in off of Crawford, followed by Josi’s second less than two minutes later, all hope was lost for the Hawks. The visitors broke Rinne’s shutout with less than six minutes to play, but Viktor Arvidsson sealed it when he walked the puck into an empty net before the final horn.

“It just speaks to the character and the determination everybody put into this series,” forward Austin Watson said. “We knew we had to play 60 minutes every single night, if not more. Everybody pulled their rope, everybody did what they needed to do and we were able to walk away with a win.”

The Preds don’t yet know if they’ll face the Wild or the Blues in the Second Round, nor do they know when the series will commence, but there is one certainty that Head Coach Peter Laviolette addressed after the sweep

“When we wake up tomorrow morning, we’re hardly into this… there’s a lot of work left to do,” Laviolette said. “”It’s good to win a series… but I promise you this, the next round will be even harder than this one.”

In the Stanley Cup Playoffs, anything is possible. Like the top team in the Western Conference seeing their postseason hopes squashed by the last seed in the West.

But it happened on Thursday night in Nashville, as the Predators completed the first sweep in franchise history, outplaying, outscoring and outlasting a Chicago team that has won three Stanley Cups in the last seven years.

Indeed, there is still plenty of work to be done if the Preds hope to keep advancing, but this is a darn good start.

“It’s great to be on the winning side after we lost two years ago,” Josi said. “They’ve been such a great organization the past couple years and a great team. It’s a lot of fun for us, I thought we played really well. [Rinne] was unbelievable in the whole series, he was definitely one of the difference-makers.”

The work of Rinne was arguably the top reason for the result, as the Finn turned aside 30 shots in Game Four, a grand total of 123 shots out of 126 turned aside through four contests.

“It’s pretty good going 4-0 against Chicago,” Rinne said. “I’m feeling good. Felt confident throughout the series… We were able to find a way to win a game every single night, so that speaks volumes of these guys. ”

Timely scoring, fortunate bounces and a raucous Nashville crowd all played into it as well, and the Preds know they’ll need plenty more of that as they hope to keep playing hockey for the foreseeable future.

“Right now, I don’t really care who we play against,” Rinne said. “If we can keep this up, I feel really confident facing anybody. Right now, we have a little bit of a break, we have to maintain our focus and think the kind of thoughts we’ve been having.”

The Predators will face either Minnesota or St. Louis in Round Two of the Western Conference bracket with dates and times to be announced at a later date. No matter what, Nashville would start on the road for Games One and Two before returning home for Games Three and Four.

Pete Weber’s Postgame Report

Ryan Zimmerman foiled R.A. Dickey’s bid for a gem and Stephen Strasburg kept Freddie Freeman’s bat quiet as the Nationals completed a three-game sweep with Thursday night’s 3-2 win over the Braves at SunTrust Park.

“All games in our division are important,” Zimmerman said. “They’re a good, young team that’s going to continue to get better. This year, there’s really no easy games in our division. So any time you can go on the road and take three, it’s a plus.”
Zimmerman produced a couple of key extra-base hits, including a go-ahead two-run homer with two outs in the sixth, as the Nationals improved to 18-4 against the Braves since the start of the 2016 season. Strasburg limited the Braves to two runs as he completed seven innings for a fourth straight start to begin the season.
Braves second baseman Brandon Phillips recorded a pair of hits, including a fourth-inning double that put him in position to score on Kurt Suzuki’s go-ahead sacrifice fly. But as Dickey allowed three earned runs and three hits over seven innings, he didn’t receive the support necessary to overcome the damage created by Zimmerman’s big blow.
“Losing games like this, you know your margin of error is real small when you’re facing [Max Scherzer], Strasburg or other great pitchers in our division,” Dickey said. “So, it hurts a little bit more when you’re that close to keeping them where you want to keep them and you let one get away from you like that.”
Strasburg had his way with Braves outfielder Matt Kemp, who was playing for the first time since he strained his left hamstring on April 7. Kemp went hitless in four at-bats with three strikeouts against the Nationals’ starter.
Dickey had retired 14 of the past 15 batters faced before he issued a five-pitch walk to Bryce Harper with two outs in the sixth, with three borderline pitches thrown within that sequence going Harper’s way according to plate umpire Fieldin Culbreth. Zimmerman had reached down and out of the zone to produce his second-inning double, but the homer he hit following Harper’s walk was a knuckleball that sat in the middle of the strike zone.
“[Culbreth] called a 3-1 and that probably would have changed the at-bat that Harper had, because it would have put him a little bit more in swing mode,” Dickey said. “Of course, with the next batter, I’ve got to flush that and still execute my pitches, and that’s the part I have to own. You hope to get calls like that in big situations. We just didn’t get that one.”
After Nick Markakis drew a one-out walk in the sixth inning, Michael Taylor, who was starting in center field after an injury to Jayson Werth moved Adam Eaton to left, denied Phillips of a hit when he raced into shallow center field to make a sparkling diving catch.
“Our outfield defense was going to come into play, because Stras gets more fly balls, probably, than ground balls,” Nats manager Dusty Baker said. “And so that was an outstanding play.”
After Suzuki opened the bottom of the seventh with a single, Braves manager Brian Snitker opted to pull Dickey, despite the fact the knuckleballer had thrown just 73 pitches. He instead batted Emilio Bonifacio, who quieted a potential threat with a strikeout. Braves pinch-hitters are 2-for-25 this season.
Bartolo Colon will make his fourth start of the season when Atlanta opens a three-game series in Philadelphia on Friday at 6:05 p.m. CT. Colon allowed just two baserunners to reach safely as he completed seven innings against the Padres on Sunday.  Thunder Radio will bring you that broadcast beginning at 6 PM.

Franklin Barreto’s seventh career four-hit game was not enough as the Sounds fell to Oklahoma City 4-3 in game three of a four game series. The Dodgers spoiled Corey Walter’s Triple-A debut as they tagged the 24-year-old for three runs on five hits in just 2.2 innings of work.

For the third game in a row the Sounds struck first. In the third inning the Sounds got four consecutive single from Melvin Mercedes, Barreto, Joey Wendle, and Mark Canha. Wendle lined the first pitch he saw into left field where Oklahoma City’s O’Koyea Dickson bobbled the ball allowing each runner to advance an extra 90 feet including a run by Mercedes. Canha then followed that up with a base hit of his own to score Barreto from third base.

The lead did not last long. Shortstop Charlie Culberson led off the home half of the third with a base hit. The next batter, Darnell Sweeney, ripped a triple to right field to score Culberson. Walter would get Dickson to strikeout but the pitch got away from catcher, Matt McBride allowing Sweeney to score from third and Dickson to reach first base. Walter was chased from the game after second baseman Willie Calhoun gave the Dodgers the 3-2 advantage on an RBI single up the middle.

In the top of the fifth inning Barreto drilled a three bagger into the alley in right center field to drive in Mercedes and tie the ballgame up at three runs apiece.

Dickson got the lead back for the Dodgers in the bottom of the fifth inning when he clubbed a pitch from Michael Brady well over the left field fence to make it 4-3 Oklahoma City. It was a lead the Dodgers would not relinquish. Brady suffered his first defeat of the season while Oklahoma City’s Madison Younginer improved to 2-0 in 2017.

The final game of the four-game series is set for Friday night in Oklahoma City. Right-hander Paul Blackburn (0-1, 1.50) takes the mound for the Sounds against southpaw Julio Urias (0-0, 3.24) for the Dodgers. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m.