Moses Lake 14-year-olds win North Washington Babe Ruth state championship

EPHRATA — At the end of the day, you almost forgot it was these same two teams that had the 10:30 p.m. start on Wednesday when it took 12 hours to play four baseball games in the tournament opener at the North Washington Babe Ruth League 14-year-old state tournament at Johnson-O’Brien Stadium.

Sedro-Woolley sent Moses Lake to the consolation bracket in a game that finished at 1 a.m. The Dirt Brothers started the long journey back, beginning with a victory over Coupeville in the 10 a.m. game on Thursday, playing on six hours sleep.

Moses Lake played through the ups and downs and overcame a four-run deficit on Friday to beat Sedro-Woolley 6-4 in the championship game.

Left-hander Kamden Kuykendall pitched a gem with a nice mixture of off-speed stuff to strike out 10 and scattered four hits over six innings. Kevin Reyes drove a waist-high fastball into the gap in right-center field to drive in what proved to be the winning runs in the top of the seventh inning and the Dirt Brothers punched their ticket to the Pacific Northwest Regional Tournament in Calgary, Alberta July 23-29 as the state champs.

“One of the things we’ve taught this team is never give up. We’re always warriors. You make a mistake, so what. We just keep pushing and pushing,” Dirt Brothers manager Ray Lopez said. “We can only control what we can control. We don’t worry about where the strike zone is. We don’t worry who the other team is pitching. What we focus on is what we can control and stay with the warrior mentality.”

The Dirt Brothers fought their way back from a four-run deficit, scoring two runs in the fourth and tying it in the fifth when they scored two runs on a wild pitch that clanked around and allowed the runner to score from second base.

All the craziness, working their way back from a loss that ended at 1 a.m., beating Coupeville, then Othello to get back to the title game, where they had to come from four runs down, all boiled down to Reyes’ at-bat in the seventh inning.

Jett Nelson drew a lead-off walk to open the final inning. Kuykendall was hit with a pitch and Julian Egia singled to load the bases. The stage was set for Reyes and the designated hitter delivered with a line shot to the gap in right-center field to drive in two runs.

“I just had the perfect opportunity. He made a mistake and threw a waist-high fastball that I was looking for,” Reyes said. “When I saw it leave the bat I was really excited because I knew we were going to get at least one run and we were able to get two out of it.”

The Dirt Brothers took a page out of Albert King’s songbook early, “ … If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all … ”

They had back-to-back runners gunned down by Sedro-Woolley outfielders runners at third and home plate, respectively, as they pressed to break a scoreless tie. Outlaws center fielder Kaidyn

Jewell scored the first run of the game on a wild pitch and Owen Murdock scored on a double steal in the third inning when Sedro-Woolley took a 4-0 lead. They had a rundown on a pick play go south when they had the runner dead to rights.

But Kuykendall settled in and the left-hander took control, holding the Outlaws hitless through the last four innings.

“We’ve been working hard the last couple of weeks and I think it showed the character of this team when we didn’t give up when we were down,” Kuykendall said. “We play baseball with a passion. Today I knew they were fastball hitters, so I like to change it up quite a bit. I set them up with a fastball, then got them out with the curve or change-up.”

Merit Jansen struck out the first batter faced in relief and got a ground ball to end it for the save and the state championship.

Moses Lake 000 220 0 - 6 8 0

Sedro-Woolley 004 000 0 - 4 4 3

HITS: Julian Egia 2-3, Jett Nelson 2-4, Kevin Reyes (2 RBI), Royce Valdez 2-3.

Rodney Harwood is a sports writer for the Columbia Basin Herald and can be reached at rharwood@columbiabasinherald.com