Medical Lake baseball coach keeps looking for answers

With their runners not getting on base with enough regularity, their pitchers failing to find the strike zone enough and defense doing a lot of fumbling, Medical Lake High School’s baseball coach Kerry Kelly is reaching for anything that might help.

The Cardinals are reeling lately with four straight losses and have dropped five of their last six contests, the most recent a 9-2 Northeast A League loss at Riverside April 21 and being swept in an NEA doubleheader April 24, losing at Lakeside 13-3 and 9-1. The week started with an 11-1 nonleague loss to Lakeland High School from Rathdrum.

“We’re just really struggling in every aspect of the game,” Kelly said. “We’re not hitting, we’re not fielding, we’re not throwing.”

So he’s turning to some popular characters of fictional literature in order to light a fire, turning to the characters of The Wizard of Oz.

“We have a page with quotes from the Tin Man, playing with a brain,” Kelly said. There’s playing with courage, like the Cowardly Lion, and so forth.”

At Riverside (1-8 NEA, 1-9 overall) and trailing 3-2 in the fifth, the Rams scored six runs to seal the complete game for John Bogetti. Tristen Keith had a three-hit day for the Cardinals, including a double.

On a cold and windy day in Suncrest, April 24, Medical Lake (5-6 NEA, 7-10) and Lakeside battled in a real duel until the fifth when the Eagles scored three times.

The Cards got one run back and trailed just 5-3 before the home team blew it open with eight runs. Medical Lake got just three hits, two by Philip Murray, but committed an awful 11 errors.

Lakeside, which won its fifth consecutive game, jumped on starting pitcher Cory Wagner for five runs in the first two innings. But the hard luck Wagner got little defensive support as the Cardinals committed another six errors. Medical Lake batters were stymied by pitcher Dillon Clark who had a two-hit, six strikeout complete game.

Leading 3-1 after an inning, Lakeside layered on two runs in the second, fourth and fifth innings, carefully combining just six hits with the error-prone Cardinals.

“We’re not competing right now,” Kelly said as he prepared to again face Riverside this past Tuesday, April 28 and travel to Deer Park today, April 30 for a 4 p.m. game.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.