After the Oakville Senior High baseball team suffered a disappointing 7-3 loss to Mehlville to open the 2005 season, the Tigers bounced back with a 7-2 win over Lindbergh High.

“To be honest, we had a tough opponent in the first game of the season,” Oakville head coach Rich Sturm told the Call. “They’re the most underrated team in the area right now.”

And Sturm was happy his Tigers were able to turn around and hand the Lind-bergh Flyers a lopsided loss.

“I was very happy with the way we bounced back,” Sturm said. “We’ve got to have the effort we had against Lindbergh to carry over this week.”

Oakville starting pitcher Pat Doyle led the Tigers on the mound with a six-inning performance that included two earned runs on three hits.

The junior walked five and retired three via strikeout in his first win of the 2005 season.

“The conditions were horrible and it rained during the last couple of innings,” Sturm said. “For as cold as it was and as sloppy as the conditions were, we were really happy with how he played.”

Greg Dambach had a strong day at the plate, going two for three with one run batted in and one double.

The junior outfielder has made a lot of progress in the past year, according to the Tigers’ head coach.

“Greg’s been hitting the ball tremendously hard,” Sturm said. “He’s becoming really hard to pitch to. He’s a very hard worker and it’s been great watching him lately.”

The Tigers are back in action at 4 p.m. today — Thursday, March 31 — as they play host to Northwest in a Suburban West Conference showdown.

“They are a tremendous hitting team and their top three pitchers can match up with anyone,” Sturm said.

“I watched them against Vianney and they’re hungry to win,” he said. “I know we’re going to have to be on top of our game in order to win.”