Medford Mustangs manager John King was admittedly a little concerned heading into the weekend about his team’s upcoming matchups.

Mind you, he was also optimistic about the Mustangs’ chances of turning the corner from a sluggish stretch following a resounding win in the final game last Friday against Roseburg that kept Medford from suffering an Area 4 sweep at the hands of the Docs.

“We’ve struggled the past four or five games,” King said after securing a split Friday, “but I’m hoping that the second game today will push us and get us going.”

It’s not been an uncommon aspect of recent seasons for Medford, returning from a California tournament and suffering a little bit of malaise in the days that followed.

“It always seems like when we come back from Reno, that first series is always really tough,” said King. “We play a ton of games and you get tired. The Reno trip was long. Typically we play five games but we played six this time and the bus broke down twice on us so it was a long trip.”

The trepidation about squaring off with the Redmond SunWest Generals one day after hosting Roseburg proved warranted by King, whose team suffered a 4-3 loss on a walk-off in the opening game before rallying for a dominant 8-0 win in the nightcap.

Medford’s fortunes for securing an automatic berth in the upcoming American Legion AAA state tournament then took another hit Monday night, when last-place Klamath Falls (3-11 Area 4) pinned a 5-3 loss on the Mustangs before Medford was able to again rally with a convincing 12-1 win in five innings.

With the recent back-and-forth frenzy, the Mustangs (27-12-3, 9-5 Area 4) have now gone 3-6 in their last nine games to slow their pursuit of a league championship. Medford and Klamath Falls will square off in another doubleheader Wednesday night.

After that, the Mustangs will be down to two final Area 4 doubleheaders against league-leading Eugene (11-3 Area 4) on Saturday and the coming Monday, with an opportunity to vault to the top should Medford tighten things up and Roseburg (9-5 Area 4) potentially slip on its second-place hold.

The top two teams in the Area 4 standings automatically qualify for the state tournament, with the league’s No. 1 seed up for the taking should Eugene finish on top since it has already qualified as the host team. A third-place finish would result in the need for a state play-in game to reach the tourney.

“I think our arms are good enough to get us to what we’re trying to do as a team, it’s just a matter of if we can execute our pitches,” King noted Friday night. “Every day we talk about it, if we execute then we’ll be fine.”

Against Redmond and Klamath Falls, Medford’s pitchers combined to allow 10 hits and eight hits, respectively, over those four games. Seven of the 10 total runs allowed were earned.

Evan Rhoden and Cole Stofflet supplied the marquee pitching performances, keeping their team from being swept in each case. Rhoden limited Redmond to three hits with two walks and four strikeouts in a complete-game shutout Saturday, while Stofflet allowed only one hit with one walk and one strikeout against Klamath Falls to close Monday’s mercy-rule twin bill.

Elijah Havey powered Medford against Redmond, driving in a pair of runs in the opener before going 2-for-5 with one run and two RBIs in the nightcap. Kaleb Long also combined to go 3-for-7 with one run and one RBI and Kyle Cope was 3-for-6 with two runs and one RBI.

Medford used a leadoff single by Cope and two-out double by Havey to create a 3-2 lead in the top of the seventh inning in Game 1 against Redmond, only to see the Generals creep back with a pair of runs in the bottom half after a walk and a two-base error resulted in an eventual walk-off single.

Freeman Rountree proved to be the hard-luck loser, allowing seven hits in 6 ⅔ innings with two walks and two strikeouts.

Klamath Falls came out firing during Monday’s opener, conjuring up five of the seven hits the Falcons would get off Medford starter Dominic Daffron in 6 ⅔ innings over the course of the first three innings to build a 4-1 advantage.

Daffron wound up striking out seven but hurt his own cause with five walks, one of which opened the door for a seventh-inning run after it was followed by a double from Marcos Ulloa-Ford, another walk and a wild pitch.

Long singled to lead off the bottom of the seventh to create hopes for a comeback. He advanced to third base following a pair of groundouts before scoring on an error after a ball put in play by Triston Wallace. The two-out rally was snuffed out by a game-ending fielder’s choice.

Davis Carr went 3-for-3 and Long was 2-for-3 to provide for the bulk of offense in Medford’s eight-hit attack in the opener.

In Game 2, Wallace made sure that a split would be secured by clearing the bases for a three-run double in the second inning after posting an RBI single in the opening frame. Wallace finished 3-for-3 with two runs and six RBIs in the five-inning romp.

Havey also had a two-run triple and Carr added an RBI triple of his own during the eight-run second inning for the Mustangs.

Jackson Rosenthal was 2-for-3 with one run and Cope went 2-for-3 with two runs to help propel Medford.

FIRST GAME

Klamath Falls Falcons 202 000 1 — 5 7 2

Medford Mustangs 100 010 1 — 3 8 1

K. Tacchini and Safford; Daffron, Stofflet (7) and Havey. W — K. Tacchini. L — Daffron. 2B — KF: Ulloa-Ford, J. Tacchini; M: Rountree.

SECOND GAME

Klamath Falls Falcons 000 10 — 1 1 2

Medford Mustangs 280 2x — 12 10 3

Knecht, Pinley (2) and J. Tacchini; Stofflet and Morgan. W — Stofflet. L — Knecht. 2B — M: Wallace. 3B — KF: Carpenter; M: Havey, Wallace, Carr.

FIRST GAME

Medford Mustangs 101 000 1 — 3 7 2

Redmond Generals 011 000 2 — 4 7 4

Rountree and Havey; Kennedy and Dean. W — Kennedy. L — Rountree. 2B — M: Havey; R: Fischer. HR — R: Macy.

SECOND GAME

Medford Mustangs 050 003 0 — 8 11 1

Redmond Generals 000 000 0 — 0 3 2

Rhoden and Morgan; Altizer, Brabb (5) and Dean. W — Rhoden. L — Altizer. 2B — M: Wallace, Havey. 3B — M: Curtis.