Cougars split recent Legion games
The Central McLean Cougars continued their American Legion baseball season with a pair of contrasting results over the past week, earning an impressive home victory over Hazen before running into a strong Bulldogs Legion 18U squad on Monday.
The split leaves Central McLean at 3-7 on the season, though head coach Gryphon Mulkey believes the record does not fully reflect the level of competition his young team has faced.
“We have started the year off 3-7, but we have played a very tough Garrison team twice where in our last encounter we gave ourselves a good shot to beat them,” Mulkey said. “The biggest thing that we need to improve on is limiting the damage we do to ourselves. The self-inflicted wounds have been our Achilles heel so far this season, but will improve as we are still pretty young for a legion squad.”
The Cougars showed what they are capable of on June 10 when they rallied for a 7-4 victory over Hazen Post 189 in a game that turned dramatically in the middle innings.
Hazen jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the opening inning, but Central McLean’s pitching staff settled down and kept the Astros off the scoreboard over the next three frames.
That gave the Cougars an opportunity to climb back into the contest.
The breakthrough came in the bottom of the fourth inning.