Junior River Dogs 2-0 in regional tournament

Teams success and tournment hopes are for real

MOSCOW, Idaho — The Junior River Dogs started their regional tournament in Moscow, Idaho with a bang, defeating the Moscow Bears by a score of 16-2.

"That game was pretty ugly," head coach Bill Walker said. "The Moscow team had a lot of walks and a lot of errors. It got away from them."

It took till the fourth inning for the Dogs to get on the score board but as the final score indicates the runs came in a flood after that.

Brett Frederickson of Moses Lake started the onslaught in the fourth inning. He came to plate with the bases loaded and two outs and cleared the bases with a double for a 3-0 lead.

Zach Swart of Naches backed up the offense with a great pitching performance. He struck out 11 batters and gave up just two earned runs in five innings for the Dogs.

"His fastball was 82 to 83 miles per hour and he threw a cutter," Walker said. "He did a good job of keeping the hitters off balance."

Swart has another advantage that he is left handed and hitters just don't see that as often.

Heading into the seventh inning the Dogs had a commanding lead of 9-2 but continued to just poor it on.

The Bears gave up seven runs in the inning.

Austin Chamberlain and Drew Belton helped mop up the game from the pitching side of things. Each tallied one inning of work in the game.

"Another solid game for the River Dogs," Walker said.

The Junior River Dogs played their second game yesterday, against a very good Northern California team. In their first game the Northern California team won by a score of 20-3.

Chase Hunter of Moses Lake was able to shut down their offense. He pitched a complete game for the Dogs by mixing up his fastball and curveball. His only troubled came in the fourth inning when he gave up three earned runs.

"He continues to pitch well for us and is a pleasant surprise," Walker said. "He keeps the game moving and gets us back in the dugout so we can hit."

And hit they did. The Dogs tallied 15 hits in the game on route to their 11-3 victory.

The Dogs just kept the pressure on Northern California all game long and it was too much for them to handle.

"We just had one or two runs every inning," Walker said.

They also had quite a few two-out hits.

In the fifth inning, with the score 6-3 and two outs, Zach Vasquez came to the plate with a runner in scoring position and got a base hit and an RBI.

"We showed the other team we were for real," Walker said. "That was a big hit for us and Vasquez has been our bench leader so that really pumped up our team."

Their 2-0 record guarantees the Junior River Dogs will have games to play on championship Saturday. Still to be decided is who and when they will play.

Their opponent today is from Colville, Idaho and has a tournament record of 0-2.

Walker says the Dogs are just worrying about each game as it comes and not thinking about the possibilities of getting to the Babe Ruth World Series.

He can not speak well enough about how each kid on the team has willingly accepted the role given to them and everyone is getting along well.

After the games the teams take advantage of some free passes to the local pool, provided to them by the tournament sponsors.

"The host families in Moscow are awesome," Walker said. "Moscow is doing a great job of hosting regionals and following the example Randy Boruff set last year when he hosted the tournament."