Medical Lake's Ben Evans has a painful look on his face after striking out in last Saturday's equally painful 15-2 loss to Deer Park.
See a photo gallery from the event here.
Medical Lake's pivotal Northeast A League baseball game with Deer Park was rained out May 5.
Cardinals' head coach Kerry Kelly might have wished the contest, rescheduled for the following afternoon, had the same result following the Stags thorough clubbing of his team 15-2 at Holliday Field.
That concluded the regular season in the NEA with Medical Lake ending as the No. 4 seed with an 8-6 record (8-7 overall) and facing Colville (6-8, 7-9) on May 9 in a loser-out first-round district playoff game at home.
Following a span where they won four games in a row, including a 4-2 victory over Newport on May 2, the Cardinals finished league play with a pair of losses after Colville earned a 6-3 win May 4.
"We had those two home games to secure third place," Kelly said. "We've done that all year," adding the team wins a few and turns around and loses a few.
Medical Lake had no answer for Cougar pitcher Nathan Bouldin who threw four dominant innings, giving up just two hits and striking out five.
But the big difference was defense where Medical Lake had a horrendous 10 errors that totally derailed the effort of Cards' starter Philip Murray.
"I think the light went out on the error box," Kelly said, referring to the scoreboard in left field that constantly showed zero errors.
The wheels came off and Deer Park just fed off of that, Kelly said. "When the wheels fall off there's no lug wrench to put them back on," Kelly joked.
"The hard part was Phil Murray was pitching great," he added. "He was making great pitches, and he should have been rewarded." But not with an offense where the only hits came from Ben Evans and Grant Vercoe.
Medical Lake miscues were a big part of Colville's (6-8, 7-9) win as the Cardinals committed six errors. And it showed in the box score for another hard-luck hurler in Kyle Thompson. He went 4 2/3rds innings, surrendering just a pair of earned runs and dishing out nine strikeouts.
Dylan Vercoe went 2 for 4 - the only Cardinal with multiple hits - with an RBI and a run scored.
The pitching duo of Thompson and Ben Evans got the support that was missing later in the week in their combined effort against Newport (3-10, 3-10). Evans, who has played multiple roles for Medical Lake, pitched five innings to close out the contest.
"Ben Evans has been quite a little story," Kelly said. "He catches, he pitches, he plays first base and he's been in the outfield. I don't think I predicted that," he added.
Murray showed the other part of his game, going 3 for 3 vs. the Grizzlies. Grant Vercoe was 2 for 3 with an RBI while brother Dylan Vercoe drove in a pair of runs with a double. Sam Griffey had the other RBI.
Medical Lake qualifies for the postseason for a third consecutive season, a solid accomplishment considering how young the team was with a number of players sophomores and freshmen.
"We just have to look at it that we've accomplished what we had wanted to accomplish to this point," Kelly said. "We have a home playoff game and if you had asked me at the beginning of the year, would I take a home playoff game, I would have said, 'Heck yeah,'" he added.
Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.
See a photo gallery from the event here.
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