Columbia River’s Level Rises in Win over Eugene
DH Cam Williams homered and doubled, and Joel Hurtado took his fourth win in five starts as the Tri-City Dust Devils (24-29), playing as the Columbia River Rooster Tails, beat the Eugene Emeralds (28-25) by a score of 5-2 Friday night in front of 2,662 at Gesa Stadium. Williams’ homer,
DH Cam Williams homered and doubled, and Joel Hurtado took his fourth win in five starts as the Tri-City Dust Devils (24-29), playing as the Columbia River Rooster Tails, beat the Eugene Emeralds (28-25) by a score of 5-2 Friday night in front of 2,662 at Gesa Stadium.
Williams’ homer, a top-spinning line drive over the left field wall, came in the bottom of the 6th inning from the right hand side of the plate. The switch-hitter’s third home run since rejoining the Dust Devils in 2024 closed out the scoring for Columbia River and gave the home side a 5-1 lead.
The Rooster Tails’s main burst of scoring came in the bottom of the 3rd with the Emeralds leading 1-0 coming in to the frame. 2B Caleb Ketchup reached on an error and RF Jadiel Sanchez walked, putting two on with one out. 3B-1B Matt Coutney then came up and singled to center, scoring Ketchup to tie the game at 1-1. SS Chad Stevens followed with a two-run double past Eugene LF Rodolfo Nolasco and getting to the wall, scoring both Sanchez and Coutney for a 3-1 Columbia River advantage. A sacrifice fly by CF Werner Blakely in the 4th inning covered the scoring for the squad.
Hurtado (5-4) navigated through trouble (4 BB, 2 HBP) to get through five innings, allowing only one run on four hits and striking out seven. The Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic native has sent 34 batters back to the dugout via punchout since the start of May, including now 16 strikeouts in two starts against Eugene in that span.
The bullpen took it home after Hurtado finished, with righties Jared Southard (2 IP), Brady Choban (1 IP) and closer Cam Minacci (1 IP, 10th save) standing on business to even the series at two games apiece. Minacci had to fight through some wildness to get the outs required, including seeing the potential tying run get aboard in the top of the 9th, but he induced a force out at second to strand the bases loaded and lock down the save.
Offensively, both Cam Williams and LF Joe Stewart had multi-hit games, with Williams’s home run and double making him the leader of the charge Friday night. Rooster Tails pitching also stranded 14 Emeralds on-base, moving the total of runners left on-base by the visitors in the first four games of the series to 51.
Columbia River and Eugene get back to it at 6:30 p.m. Saturday night at Gesa Stadium, where postgame fireworks will light the night sky thanks to HiLine Engineering and Fabrication. The Rooster Tails will send right-hander Jorge Marcheco (2-3, 5.15 ERA) to the mound, while the Emeralds will give the ball to righty Will Bednar (0-0, 4.50) to open.
Broadcast coverage of Saturday night’s game begins with the pregame show at 6:10 p.m. both here and on the MiLB app, with video coverage on Bally Live and MiLB.tv.
Tickets for the Rooster Tails weekend are on sale now with special ticket rates available for groups of 20 or more. For more information on Dust Devils single game, season, mini-plan (11, 22, 33) and group tickets, visit the team’s official ticketing site, dustdevilsbaseball.com.