Oilmen drop second straight
By Dave Melton Post-=Tribune correspondent June 23, 2012 11:06PM
Updated: July 25, 2012 6:57AM
WHITING — For the first time in their brief history, the Northwest Indiana Oilmen are on a losing streak after falling 8-4 to the DeKalb County Liners for their second loss in a row.
“We just had two bad innings,” Oilmen (14-5) manager Justin Huisman said. “We didn’t make plays and we didn’t pitch too well and that cost us a bunch of runs.”
One of those bad innings came in the first, as the Liners jumped all over NWI starter Danny Britt. DeKalb scored five runs on three hits, a walk, a hit batter and a wild pitch. Britt did settle down after that shaky start, however, keeping the Liners scoreless for the next five innings.
“He got behind some counts early, which is always trouble for a pitcher,” Huisman said. “But then he re-grouped and did what he asked him to do: get out of that inning and then throw up some zeroes.”
NWI grabbed a pair of runs in the second inning on a DeKalb error and an RBI double from Brandon Krieg.
“He attacked the zone early with fastballs,” said Krieg, the Purdue product who had two of his team’s seven hits off Harrison, a pitcher from IU. “I made sure I was ready to hit early in the count and that helped me be successful.”
But the Oilmen could not get any closer, as DeKalb starter Luke Harrison kept NWI from scoring again until the eighth inning.
“We did hit the ball hard,” Huisman said. “But that doesn’t show up on the scoreboard. We just didn’t string enough hits together.”
In the top of the eighth inning, the Liners added three runs off NWI reliever Josh Stowe to extend the lead to 8-2. The Oilmen responded with two runs in the bottom half of the inning, finally chasing Harrison from the game — but too late for a comeback.
