It was a mixed bag that followed Medical Lake’s AA American Legion Baseball team through their 1-5 week of play last week.
Bats were either smacking the ball, or not. Gloves were either snagging the ball, or not. And pitchers were either on, or not.
The week started out with a literal bang and a 23-12 win over Central Valley, followed by a 6-3 loss in game two June 20.
“It was crazy, it was a 3 1/2 hour game,” co-head coach Austin Sharp said of the opening slugfest. “We hit the heck out of the ball,” Sharp added, noting Medical Lake had 15 hits. No individual batting statistics were provided for the CV contests or other ML games last week.
Pitching suffered on both sides, but for Medical Lake, Sharp was most concerned about the 14 batters that were walked.
Medical Lake stayed on the road at East Valley on June 21 in a game that had a definite bright light.
Jake Carr, who just completed his freshman season at Liberty High School, started against East Valley and shined in going the distance — seven innings — while giving up just two earned runs, but suffering a 6-1 loss.
Defense played a role in this setback. “We bobbled the ball a couple of times in the third or fourth (innings),” Sharp said. Carr only gave up four hits, but the errors cost ML. Lakeside’s Cale Swanson scored the lone run.
Medical Lake was back home versus NWC on June 23, but faced a much different team than they had manhandled a couple of week’s prior in a 15-1 ML victory. The visitors went home with wins by scores of 8-6 and 14-3.
“They came to swing that day,” Sharp said.
If there was an upside it was defense.
“We made a lot better plays in the field than we did against East Valley,” Sharp said.
This past Monday, June 26, National Division power University rolled to a 10-0 rout at Holliday Field.
The original doubleheader was cut in half by thunderstorms that raced through the region in the early evening.
“In our league of five (teams) they are definitely the most talented,” Sharp said.
Every time the teams have met, “We’ve played with them for the first four innings, and then that one inning comes around — the fifth inning — we seem to not be able to keep that one from happening,” Sharp added.
Down 1-0 while surrendering just a single hit, Sam Gollehon seemed to be in control. After pair of walks, two outs seemed to get him out of a jam. But UHi managed to score eight runs after that.
Heading into this weekend’s Wood Bat Classic where ML will host a pod beginning Friday, June 30 at 8 a.m. with a contest against Crew 16U. Medical Lake concludes play versus the Eagle Vipers at 6 p.m.
They are at it bright and early Saturday, July 1 with an 8 a.m. start versus the CWBC Hawks and again wrap up the day’s play at 6 versus the River Bandits.
Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.
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