Moses Lake opens with rough loss

It was an evening to forget for Moses Lake.

The night started with a calm pitching dual between Eastlake's Jordan Jackson and Moses Lake's Josh Sherman. But, Jackson could relax as Eastlake took advantage of four errors and four wild pitches to defeat Moses Lake 8-1 in the 15-year-old Babe Ruth state tournament at Larson Field Thursday night.

Moses Lake manager Ed McNamara said he settled in for a pitching battle and prepared to manufacture runs before the meltdown in the field in the third inning.

"I think there were some nerves out there," McNamara said. "One guy makes a mistake and another guy makes a mistake and it is a snowball affect."

Both sides played stingy defense, including a diving grab by Moses Lake's Jon Redford on Nate Adams' blooper to center field.

But, an error in the third for Moses Lake left the door open for Eastlake to score. Marcus Walsh hit a one-out double to center field in the bottom of the third and advanced to third on an error by Moses Lake's center fielder.

Walsh later put Eastlake on the board, scoring on a wild pitch. Adams came around to score on a wild pitch, ending the inning with a 2-0 lead.

Errors began to plague Moses Lake like a virus, opening the bottom of the fourth with a dropped pop fly to shallow left field, which followed with a single and an RBI double.

Eastlake's Jackson scored on a throwing error by the Moses Lake catcher and Walsh picked up an RBI infield single for the third run of the inning and a 5-0 lead in the game.

"We beat ourselves, they didn't beat us," McNamara said. "Those two innings hurt us and we made the mistakes."

Moses Lake wasn't without opportunity.

In the top of the sixth, Moses Lake's Taylor McNamara and Matt Valdez opened with back-to-back singles and successfully attempted a double steal to put both runners in scoring position with one out.

Kenny Guerra broke Eastlake's shutout with a sacrifice fly ball to score McNamara for Moses Lake's only run of the game. The offensive production picked up only one run on three hits for Moses Lake in the game.

A spot McNamara said was the strength of his ball club.

"I think that is probably our strength and I don't know if that had to do with nerves," McNamara said. "We had opportunities with guys at second and third and didn't do anything."

At the end of it all, Eastlake tagged three more runs in the sixth and closed out the top of the seventh to preserve an 8-1 victory over Moses Lake on the first day of pool play in the tournament.

McNamara said he hopes the game put Moses Lake in a position to relax for the rest of the tournament. At the same time, learn from the errors in the field.

"Hopefully they rebound and make a change tomorrow night," McNamara said.

Moses Lake faces South Kitsap tonight at Larson Field at 8 p.m., while Eastlake matches up with Central Basin at 2 p.m.