Owlz Offense Quiet in Ogden Opener

OGDEN, Utah -- NoCo pitched pretty well on Tuesday, but Ogden's pitching proved more impressive, and a quiet night for the Owlz offense ended their five-game win streak.

Oppositely, the Raptors (8-3) relied on a steady stream of runs. They scored in five different innings, and none of those numbers were crooked.

At the same time, their pitchers were cookin'.

Starter Ronny Orta (W, 2-0) stormed through 6.1 innings of stellar stuff, and the venerable Venezuelan worked with a lead almost his entire outing.

Ogden's Fox Semones sliced a leadoff single in the top of the first, and then he came around to score. Tuesday's tussle became the fifth game in a row that exact scenario happened against the Owlz (5-6).

The next inning, when Brian Dansereau demolished the first pitch he saw for his second homer in as many games, that lead quickly left. But Dansereau's dinger ended up being the only blemish on Orta's outing. After that, the righty racked up four strikeouts while allowing only four more hits. All those hits were singles.

In fact, that tater turned out to be NoCo's only extra-base hit of the night, meaning the quiet contact continued against a trio of Raptors relievers as well.  Chase Stratton, Jack Cunningham, and Dylan Pearce (S, 3) together faced just 11 Owlz batters to close this one out. That platoon put together 2.2 innings of four-strikeout, three-hit, zero-walk ball, and it didn't give up a run until Zach West innocently singled home Mike Annone with his club down four in the top of the ninth.

The Owlz used half the number of arms that Ogden did. Austin Schneider (L, 1-2) and Kyle Adkins each pitched 4.0 innings on Tuesday, and overall, they held their own on the hill. Schneider spun four strikeouts while walking a pair, and Adkins added five strikeouts of his own while also walking two.

The biggest number, though, is five wild pitches, which contributed directly to two of the Raptors' runs early on.

Even so, both Schneider and Adkins looked pretty fresh. The Owlz offense, on the other hand, went a little stale. Despite having fewer strikeouts than Ogden, and the same number of hits, NoCo never consistently strung together a scoring threat.

Despite a quiet night for his new team, shortstop Brandon Crosby made some noise in his NoCo debut, knocking three hits in his four at-bats. Annone and West gave the only other multi-hit performances from Tuesday's contest, each going 2-for-4. Alex Jackson's fifth-inning flare into center field extended his hit streak to eight games. Dansereau, with his blast, became the owner of a six-game hit streak and a seven-game RBI streak, not to mention that he's now reached base safely in all 11 games he's played this season.

So, yeah, there are still some positive takeaways from Tuesday's tough end to the winning streak. The Owlz will look for even more positives in game two of this six-game set at lovely Lindquist Field. That game will be Wednesday, and it's scheduled to start at 7 p.m.