One bad inning was enough to sink the W.F. West baseball team in a high-level non-league showdown at the RORC in Ridgefield, as the Bearcats lost to Lynden 7-4 in a match of 2A state contenders.
The Lions did just about all of their damage in a six-run fourth inning where they finally got to W.F. West starter Hunter Lutman for good, chasing him before he could get the second out in the frame. Lutman took the loss, allowing five runs on five hits and four walks, and striking out three.
Riggs Westlund came in to get the Bearcats out of the inning, but not before allowing a run of his own to make it a 6-1 ballgame. From there, Waylen Land took the Bearcats the rest of the way with three shutout frames in long relief.
“Waylen was outstanding,” WFW coach Jesse Elam said. “He just went in and threw strikes and kept those guys off-balance.”
On the other side, W.F. West managed just one hit in the first six innings against Lynden starter Lane Simonsen, a junior committed to toss next year at Washington, a game removed from getting one-hit by Central Arizona-bound Carter Seely at Selah.
“He was pretty good,” Elam said. “That’s a couple of tough pitchers to face back-to-back.”
After starting to figure out Simonsen a bit in the fifth, the Bearcats did their best to mount a comeback against the Lions’ bullpen. After the bottom of the Bearcats’ lineup put runners on to flip the order over with two outs, Braden Jones singled one run home and Gavin Fugate doubled in another and represented the tying run in scoring position, but a groundout ended the rally.
“We want to see these types of guys, and we're learning a lot about our approach and how we need to handle it,” Elam said. “We didn’t make the adjustments early enough to be able to do that. We had some tough at-bats, kids battled, but we’ve got to make that adjustment a little sooner.”
Ross Kelley went 1 for 2 and got hit by a pitch at the bottom of the WFW order, while Avery Staloch had the Bearcats’ only other hit.
W.F. West will get a second game in Ridgefield on Saturday, against either the host Spudders or North Kitsap.
