Medical Lake baseball fate sealed

Call them gutsy performances by certain individuals, but still losses nonetheless.

Medical Lake lost a pair of Northeast A League baseball games 4-1 at Lakeside on April 24 and 16-0 to Deer Park April 27.

The setbacks added more reality to the Cardinals days ahead that it’s time to at least begin thinking about the idea there will be no postseason for first-year head coach Austin Sharp.

Weston Thomas pitched against Lakeside. “He just does not disappoint,” Sharp said. He gave up two earned runs, had five strike outs and surrendered six hits.

Lakeside (4-6 NEA, 5-12 overall) scored twice in the bottom of the sixth for the insurance they needed to also add breathing room between themselves and Medical Lake (1-9, 3-12) in the battle for the final NEA playoff spot.

Gavin O’Brien had a pair of hits for the Cardinals who had chances Sharp said, but could not get runners across the plate in the seventh.

Hot and cold Deer Park turned it on early, scoring in each of the first four innings and led 9-0. But it was their seven-run sixth that added an exclamation point — and mercifully ended the Holliday Field encounter where the home team was limited to just a pair of hits, but kicked in four errors to help the Stags’ cause.

The Stags (6-4, 9-5) have had their chances to climb the NEA standings ladder to challenge the top teams like Chewelah and Freeman but lost with a grand slam to the Scotties, and oddly fell to Lakeside.

But they held Medical Lake to just two hits by Sam Griffey and Trevor Hurt-Moran.

After Thomas dislocated his shoulder in practice, Sam Gollehon, normally a shortstop, opened the Deer Park game, went five innings and gave up just three earned runs of the nine to that point.

Running out of arms, Sharp threw a new one into the mix —Chandler Chitwood — who threw a pair of strikes in his first two batters. “But one of them happened to be an inside-the-park home run,” Sharp said from the bat of the Stags’ Bennet Lim.

The Cardinals concluded the regular season with four games in as many days with both scheduled and earlier rain-delays. May 1, they played at Newport and Riverside May 2. They concluded the regular season with games against Colville, May 3 and Deer Park May 4, also on the road.

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