Sun Devils win final district game, head to state finals

MOSES LAKE - Needing to win one game the Moses Lake Sun Devils took two to clinch a Junior American Legion District title to advance on to the state finals.

Bouncing back from a 7-6 loss to Walla Walla at Larson Field on Saturday, the Sun Devils held on for a 2-0 win in the rematch to book their trip to Lacey and the Junior American Legion State Championships which begin on Saturday.

"It was a great game, not just because we won, but we were forced to make every play, throw strikes, execute sacrifice bunts and hit-and-runs, and we did all of those," Sun Devils coach Mark Rust said. "When the season was on the line with a loser-out game, our boys stepped up and played great baseball."

The Sun Devils (15-16) advanced behind Spencer Street's complete game, three-hit shutout.

Street struck out seven and walked four batters.

"He was getting behind a lot of hitters, but just kept battling and making his pitches when he needed to," Rust said of Street. "Spencer walked the bases loaded in the seventh putting the tying run in scoring position, but struck out the last two hitters to end the game. What's a couple more gray hairs, I couldn't pull him out, since he'd come way too far.

On offense, the Sun Devils were led by Brett Moser's three hits and two stolen bases while Street added two hits, including the eventual game winning run when he knocked in Chase Tunstall in the fourth inning.

Cole Raymond singled in Street with two out to cap off the scoring.

From there the Sun Devils held off all Walla Walla challenges.

"I can't say enough about our defense this game," Rust said. "Jacob Williams blocked every ball behind the plate and threw out every attempted stolen base, Brett Moser was stellar at shortstop saving a couple runs and the outfielders tracked down every ball and threw out two baserunners trying to advance. One came at the plate by Erick Huberdeau that threw out what would have been the go ahead run early in the game."

In the game one loss, the Sun Devils fell behind 5-0 early and nipped away at the deficit before falling short.

"We just couldn't string together enough hits, plus a couple baserunning errors, led to a sluggish offense," Rust said.

Tunstall pitched a complete game giving up four earned runs on eight hits, while striking out three.

"They didn't hit him that hard just to the right spots, swinging bunts and seeing eye singles," Rust said.

Moses Lake cut the deficit to 5-4 by the sixth inning before Walla Walla bumped the lead back up to 7-4 in their top half of the seventh inning.

Four straight hits by the Sun Devils helped close the gap to the final count in the bottom half of the frame.

"We're not blessed with much speed, and don't have a lot of power," Rust said. "So we're forced to go station to station when we're down that many runs late in the game. We were very close, never really out of the game, just didn't do enough fundamental things to bring home a win."

Jordan Lacelle, Tunstall and Street all had two hits apiece for the Sun Devils in the loss.