Middleton Upends St. Maries, 5-3

State baseball

For the St. Maries High baseball team, it was opportunities frittered away.

Middleton, making its first appearance at the State A-2 tournament in 10 years, made the most of its chances Thursday evening as the Vikings slipped past the Lumberjacks 5-3 at Treasure Valley Community College’s Elk Memorial Field.

The final game of the four opening-round contests was delayed 90 minutes because the earlier games were backed up when a sprinkler was left running overnight and flooded parts of the field.

St. Maries (24-3) will take on Wood River (21-6) in a loser-out game at 12:30 p.m. PDT.

There’s still a chance that Intermountain League rivals St. Maries and Lakeland may face each other. But it can only occur in the consolation final if both teams win today.

Thursday’s game began as a pitchers’ duel, and it stayed that way through four innings.

That’s when Middleton (17-10) scored two runs in the fifth to take a 3-1 lead.

Middleton’s Jarrod Brazil led off with a bad-hop single past St. Maries second baseman Luke Silvis. Chris Smith followed with a double, scoring Brazil. Three batters later, Justin Fried hit a deep sacrifice fly.

St. Maries fought back in the top of the sixth, tying the score at 3-3. After the Lumberjacks loaded the bases on three walks, Michael Schwartz scored on a wild pitch and Jason Bentcick hit a 3-2 pitch that deflected off relief pitcher Chad Bennett’s glove.

Shortstop Jared Marshall retrieved the ball, but couldn’t throw out Bentcick who slid into first base.

The Vikings had trouble early in the game trying to figure out St. Maries pitcher Trent Duffey, who lives and dies on off-speed pitches. Finally, in the bottom of the sixth, Middleton broke through.

Brodie Brazil walked to lead off the inning. He stole second base and advanced to third on a wild pitch. Then, with the infield playing in, Marshall hit a chopper to St. Maries shortstop Jake Adams, who fielded the ball cleanly but his throw was well wide of home plate, allowing Brazil to score and Marshall to advance to second base.

One out later, Smith doubled over the right fielder’s head, scoring Marshall. Smith finished with two hits and three RBIs.

Typical of the Lumberjacks all game, they had their chances in the seventh.

They loaded the bases with two outs, but the game ended on a ground out.

St. Maries stranded 10 runners.

“We had opportunities the whole game,” coach Jeff Andersen said. “The kids played hard. We just squandered opportunity after opportunity. We needed a base hit to change the tempo of the game real quick.”

The missed chances seemed to magnify St. Maries’ mistakes.

“The kids busted their rumps,” Andersen said. “They’re quality people. When it comes to going to battle, I wouldn’t go to battle with any bunch of boys but these.”

A1 baseball

A bases-loaded walk forced in the winning run in the top of the seventh inning as Minico edged Lewiston 4-3 at the State A-1 baseball tournament in Boise.

All four runs off Bengals starter Julius Smith were unearned. Smith fanned 11.

Neil Litchfield drove in all three runs for Lewiston. He had a game-tying solo home run in the bottom of the fifth. The Bengals had the bases loaded in the first and second innings but managed to score just one run.

Lewiston takes on the Bonneville-Centennial loser today at 4:30 p.m.