Walleyes season ends at doorstep of districts

Coached McNamara saw improvement in pitching and defense

The Walleyes watched their season end at the hands of the Blues yesterday.

They were in a fight for the districts and the winner goes on to play in a double elimination to determine the winner of districts.

Head coach Ed McNamara accomplished what he set out to do at the beginning of the Walleyes season.

"A lot of these guys will be varsity next year," McNamara said.

Over the course of the 24-game season, the Walleyes finished 14-10, McNamara saw the teams pitching staff and defense improve.

"We were concerned with first pitch strikes and not walking batters," McNamara said. "And we improved that."

The goal of the season is to get the kids some more games under their belts ,and for the coaches to get an idea of what to expect from certain players when the baseball season starts next year at Moses Lake high school.

The top pitchers on the team were Zane Bator and Josh Munoz. The Walleyes infield was mostly comprised of Bator, Munoz, Taylor McNamara, Derek LaFave, Jake Penrose, Olaf Moore, Bryan Sanchez and catcher Pablo Correa.

In the outfield the Walleyes fielded Dan Collins, Zach Kenner, Jon Redford and Adrian Villa.

The team hit a slight decline in performance when some players left to joing the Junior River Dogs. They were Chase Hunter, Brett Frederickson, Zach Vasquez and Matt Valdez.

"I got to see what these kids could do," McNamara.

Now he must wait because he can not talk to the kids about baseball until the team begins practicing again in January.

This was McNamara's first year of coaching the varsity squad and Walleyes.

He said up until this year there was about eight high school coaches that coached in the American Legion league, for the very same reasons McNamara is doing so this year.

"This game is not indicative of the type of performance the team is capable o," McNamara said.

Their pitchers had trouble keeping the ball down and locating their breaking balls and the Blues made them pay dearly for it by scoring 11 runs in the game.

"The pitcher for the Blues did just that. He kept the ball down and located his breaking ball effectively," McNamara said. He limited the Walleyes to just three runs during the game.

Now the players and coach will get well deserved break from baseball McNamara said. These same players on the Walleyes will join the Moses Lake high school varsity baseball squad in the spring of 2006.