Desert Dogs sweep away the Blues

EPHRATA - Coming off a strong third place finish over the past weekend at the Father's Day Bash in the Tri Cities, the Columbia Basin Desert Dogs baseball team carried their momentum into Tuesday's doubleheader at Johnson-O'Brien Stadium.

They sure showed how much they had built up coming out of the weekend as they blew out the Wenatchee Blues 14-0 in game one of the two-game set before having to fight it out for a 5-4 win in the nightcap.

The Desert Dogs (15-6), a team that is considered the Columbia Basin RiverDogs' second or white team, continue their run toward a hoped for strong regional finish and a chance to play at the Babe Ruth World Series in Ephrata coming up in August. The blue, or top, RiverDogs squad are already in the field as hosts.

The Desert Dogs took advantage of some strong pitching from the combined efforts of Nick Laszlo (Moses Lake HS), Brett Lopez (Moses Lake HS), and Amando DeLeon (Othello HS), as the three hurlers combined on a four-hit, lockdown performance.

Their team's offense did their fair share of contributing to the win as they belted 13 hits and scored five runs in the first and fourth innings and four more runs in the third inning.

DeLeon went 3-for-3 with three RBI and a double, Devin Juarez (Moses Lake) completed the game hitting 3-for-3, Nate Steffler (Moses Lake) finished 2-for-2 as did Dylan Garza (Othello) who also had two RBI.

The second game was definitely more of a battle as the Desert Dogs needed to go extras before winning with a run in the bottom of the eighth to wrap up the sweep.

Juarez, Steffler, Nick Dodds (Moses Lake), Tanner Williams (Ephrata), and Garza all pitched in the win, with Garza earning the victory.

The squad took a 4-3 lead in the fifth when Juarez singled and reached second on an error. He then stole third and would come around on Wenatchee's second fielding miscue of the inning.

Wenatchee tied things up in their half of the seventh but the Desert Dogs responded when DeLeon doubled with two outs and Johnny Navarro (Quincy) banged out a game winning, RBI single, as his hit brought home the Huskie and complete the 2-0 evening.

The Desert Dogs also survived a sixth inning threat where Wenatchee had two runners on third base and failed to score.

This weekend, the Desert Dogs take part in the High Desert Classic to be held at Johnson-O'Brien Stadium and Big Bend Community College.