Spokane South Places Third

In a baseball game where both teams were given ample opportunities to score runs, Moses Lake took advantage of its final chance. It left a team of South Side and Balley 13-year-olds a run away from a date with destiny.

Spokane South instead finished third in the Northern Washington State Babe Ruth Tournament this past week in Spokane.

The team won 4 of 5 games before suffering the wrenching seventh-inning two-out 4-3 loss to Moses Lake that kept it from a finals date and rematch against eventual champion Othello. Othello beat Moses Lake 15-5 in the title game on Monday.

Spokane South’s 16-player roster included Cheney athletes Adam Clayden, Cody Kendall, Connor Fuhrman, Alex Webber, Jayson McConnell and alternate Jared Fausett, and South Hill player Craig Cooley. Marc Webber was assistant coach.

The all-star team came from members of Spokane Youth Sports baseball league teams.

They opened the state tournament with an 8-3 win over Bainbridge Island but lost 15-2 to Othello.

Spokane South then won three straight loser’s-bracket games, outscoring Eastlake, Wenatchee and North Kitsap by a 45-11 total.

“Webber was our centerfielder and one of our big hitters,” said Jones. “Clayden was outstanding pitching, just outstanding.”

Of Webber’s five hits, two were triples. Cooley had two hits in one win and played good defense at second base, Jones said.

In the semifinal game with Moses Lake, Spokane South rallied from a second-inning deficit in which two misplayed fly balls led to three runs.

The team scored twice in the third and tied the game on Webber’s fourth-inning line drive into left field.

But the team left runners in scoring position three other times, while Moses Lake twice had a runner at second base with no outs and a runner at third with two gone, and didn’t score.

That wasn’t the case when Moses Lake opened the bottom of the seventh inning with a double, and the runner moved up on a dropped third strike. Still, Spokane appeared to have dodged a bullet on a two-out grounder back to the mound, only to have the throw be wide and dropped, enabling the winning run to score.

Jones took responsibility for the outcome.

“I made a couple mistakes coaching-wise,” he said.

He pointed particularly to the fifth inning when, with runners at first and third and none out, Spokane South failed to score.

“I thought they’d give us second and threw the kid out,” he said. “We didn’t send the runner from third, which was critical. Maybe I should have been bunting.”

Jones told his team afterward to be proud of itself. Third place in a 10-team state tournament wasn’t bad, if not entirely satisfying.

“I was very happy with the kids,” he said. “But we wanted a second chance at Othello.”

In another tournament, the South Side Mustang All-Stars finished second in sectionals at Seattle and advanced to the sectionals in Farmington, Utah.