River Dogs struggle at Taylor Baseball Classic

SEATTLE - After finishing 8-2 in their last 10 games, the Rivers Dogs struggled at the Taylor Baseball Classic in Seattle and finished 1-4.

Columbia Basin lost its first four games of the tournament and finally salvaged a win in its final game against Champion, 10-1.

"It was a very tough tournament," head coach Randy Boruff said. "All the teams were good ... Overall our pitching wasn't real solid, seemed like we were always pitching from behind. Our clutch hits wasn't there."

The River Dogs opened the tournament against the Kennewick Bandits, losing 3-0. Timbo Taylor pitched well, but the run support wasn't there.

The struggles continued against the Zoots Baseball Club and the North Shore Twins. The River Dogs lost both games 10-4 and 5-3, respectively.

Columbia Basin's fourth loss in a row came against tournament host Taylor Baseball, 8-1.

"Every good team always has a weekend or two where they just don't hit on all cylinders," Boruff said. "We could've hit the ball really well and got poor pitching and got beat scoring an average of 12 runs and give up 12 runs or you could have really good pitching not have any hitting whatsoever.

"I think that for us we just had a combination of pitching, like I said, not commanding the strike zone always pitching from behind and also lack of clutch hits."

A strong start from Koleman Johns in the team's finale helped the River Dogs reach the win column. Johns struck out nine and only allowed one walk in Columbia Basin's win against Champion.

Justin DeHoog had three hits and Drew Loera smashed a bases loaded double.

Columbia Basin averaged eight hits a game, but only managed eight total runs in the four losses.

"It's not the amount of hits that you get, it's when do you get the hits," Boruff said.

Despite struggling against some of the better teams in Washington, Canada and California, Boruff is glad a weekend like this came in late June and not August.

The River Dogs will look to regroup this weekend when the team returns home for the first time in a month at the Big Bang Classic.

Columbia Basin's first game is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday at Johnson-O'Brien Stadium.

"After having two good weekends back-to-back where we were 4-1 we've got some work to do," Boruff said. "The caliber of teams that we played were pretty tough, so that tells us a little something."