Though the Centralia baseball team had a solid outing throughout, a disastrous second inning led to a 5-2 loss to River Ridge in its season opener Friday afternoon in Olympia.
The Tigers out-hit the Hawks, 7-2, but committed four costly errors in the second inning that led to a 5-spot for the Hawks. That 5-1 lead turned out to be too much to overcome, as the Tigers managed to plate just one more run in the loss.
“Offensively we only struck out four times,” Centralia coach Jake LeDuc said. “I feel like we have four pitchers that can keep us in ball games, we’re going to need to hit when we have guys on base, and we need to play defense. Unfortunately we compounded our errors in that second inning.”
Tucker Weaver got the start on the hill for the Tigers, tossing two innings, walking two, allowing just one hit and striking out three, but giving up five unearned runs in that second inning. Brady Sprague came in relief to pitch two scoreless innings with three strikeouts, and Marcus Miller pitched the final two innings and struck out five.
“I thought all three of our pitchers threw just fine,” LeDuc said. “Only giving up two hits with 11 strikeouts as a staff versus six walks, those are good numbers.”
Moshie Eport went 2 for 4 at the plate with a run scored, Sprague went 2 for 3 with an RBI, Landen Jenkins added an RBI on a 2 for 3 day, and Gabe Seymour went 1 for 1 with two walks and a run scored.
When the Tigers take the field next against Aberdeen for their home opener at Ed Wheeler Field on Tuesday, they’ll hope to keep up the solid play, and avoid an inning like the second against the Bobcats in league play.
“I’ve been telling the kids at practice that we have to take care of the ball and we didn’t today,” LeDuc said. “I feel good about our pitching, like I said I’d like to see more than two runs, but we have to play the third part of the game and play defense.”
