River Dogs blanked at Chaffey Memorial

SEATTLE — The Columbia Basin River Dogs ran into a buzz saw at the Chaffey Memorial dropping all five games in tournament play in Seattle July 20-23.

The Senior Babe Ruth team based out of Ephrata was soundly beaten by the Reno Knights 12-2 in their opener, battled Taylor of Seattle to a 7-4 outcome in Game 2, and nearly pulled of an upset in an 8-6 loss in Game 3 to host Chaffey. The team was turned back 5-2 by Showtime in Game 4, and then were dealt an 8-1 defeat at the hands of the NW Bandits.

Despite going 0-5 coach Randy Boruff remained optimist about the outing.

“We didn’t do real well, but we knew we weren’t going to because the five teams that were there are as good or better than the teams we’ll see at the World Series,” he said. “But the reason we went there was to get experience against that caliber of competition.”

The River Dogs did get off on the right foot, jumping out to an early 2-0 lead against the Knights in Game 1, but the wheels came off the bus shortly thereafter and the team never recovered.

“We made costly mistakes and you can’t do that against really good teams.” Boruff said. “On the positive side, we did have a couple of guys have good outings. Dakota Fingers had an outstanding tournament — played great defense and hit close to .500– Nick Lopez hit the ball well — and Abel Gomez from Othello pitched well — had just one bad inning against the Bandits — but he deserved better than the final score, which was 8-1.”

The River Dogs now at 35-14 on the season, have close to two weeks to work out the bugs before the start of the Senior Babe Ruth World Series that will be played in the familiar home surroundings of Johnson-O’Brien Stadium.

“We’ll be fine, Boruff said. “We’ll have 10 days to get ready. In the past, we’ve done well with 10 days of practice…I think the kids will be ready to go.”

The River Dogs will look to capture their second World Series Championship in the last three years when pool play gets underway in Ephrata Aug. 5.