The location was Valley Ridge Park, the game was baseball. Seattle Christian, which actually overlooks the park and Tyee High School, played their neighbor on Saturday, March 30th.
This was a non-league game. Seattle Christian, who plays in the Nisqually 1A Conference, came into the game with a record of 3 wins and 5 losses, while Tyee plays in the Seamount Conference and has a 5 wins and 2 losses record.
As to the weather, well, what a difference a week makes! A week ago I was freezing at a track meet, but on this day, I actually got a sunburn. The sun was totally out, not a cloud in the sky, but there was a bit of a breeze. It was so nice I felt I could have burst out in a chorus of, “Take me out to the ball game”, but luckily for everyone I didn’t!
Both teams are young: Tyee has three freshmen who start for them, and three of their four pitchers are freshman. SC also has three freshmen starters.
Both teams played their share of games during the week. Including this game, Seattle Christian played four games in six days and Tyee played four games in five days.
With that many games being played in a short period of time, pitching does become an issue for teams who have innings left to pitch. It is a statistic closely watched by teams and it needs to be. WIAA rules limit how many innings a pitcher can throw.
[ From The WIAA Handbook, Specific Sport Rules and Regulations.
51.5.0 PITCHER LIMITATION
When a pitcher pitches four (4) innings or more in a contest which began and ended on the same day or in a day, the pitcher shall not pitch again until two (2) calendar days have elapsed.
51.5.1 One (1) pitch constitutes an inning.]
Well that sums it up - the WIAA wants to protect a pitcher, as they should, from an overuse injury.
As the game began, you could see that Seattle Christian took control, and Tyee struggled. SC was able to take advantage of Tyee’s starting pitcher Ryu Ito. SC scored two runs in the first inning and three in the second inning. SC starting pitcher Tyler Ridings was able to shut Tyee down. In the first five innings they were only able to score one run in the second.
Several times Tyee had the bases loaded but never got that clutch hit they needed because SC would stop the rally. Two times Tyee had SC runners caught in a rundown, which should have been an easy out, only to have a fielder make a bad ball toss and let the base runner get back to the bag.
In the sixth inning, SC put two more runs on the board but this time Tyee did the same, making it an 8-3 game. And now, as the commercial says, “But wait, there’s more!”
SC started having some pitching problems - they were giving up walks. In the bottom of the 7th inning, Tyee put together a late rally so SC made a pitching change. SC Coach Chris Fox took out Kyle Hefferen and replaced him with Nate Wollam. That didn’t seem to stop Tyee from continuing their burst of scoring runs.
I don’t know what you would call it, a second wind, energy burst, restored strength, second energy burst? Whatever you call it, it just worked! Tyee was able to conjure up six – yes, I said six - runs in the bottom of the seventh inning. “ Holy scoring, Batman!” It was all SC could do to try and stop the bleeding, but sadly for the SC team and fans, it was to no avail. It is important to note that all nine players got up to bat for Tyee in the 7th inning.
That ninth batter, Tyee’s Jar Yourglitch, only a freshman, had the hit that brought teammate Kyle Howell home for the win. He was also the pitcher who got the win for Tyee.
After the game, Coach Mack said, “It was a great day to play baseball. It almost looked like we were burned-out and didn't want to be out here. Our pitchers were sore and burned-out. The kids came through and didn't give up and played hard and that's the way these kids have been. They’ve been fighting hard, won't give up and they do things the right way.”
Coach Mack added, “Overall I'm proud of the kids. It's a big win for our program because now they see that no matter what the situation is, you just never give up fighting till the very end. Today was a collective win for us, everybody played a part. Everybody's playing as a team and we never give up. Be positive and positive things will happen. I believe in them and need to keep them believing in themselves.”
The game statistics would lead you to believe it should have been a Seattle Christian win, but again, statistics can be misleading. Tyee had a total of 3 errors in the game while SC had 0. Now this next statistic is hard to believe: Seattle Christian had 12 hits to only 6 for Tyee, and Tyee won the game, 9-8. That obviously had to do with all the walks SC gave up.
Seattle Christian game highlights: Shawn Abe and Shane Pierotti scored 3 runs apiece.
Tyee game highlights : Brock O'Brien and Isaak Wiebe scored 2 runs apiece.
Kudos to Seattle Christian, as they consistently have a good baseball team. I can’t say that for Tyee, though, as they have had problems in the past. With the help of Coach Mack, Tyee has been working on rebuilding their baseball program. It is nice to know that Tyee, only halfway into the season, has already won more games than all of last year. Now that is a good start on rebuilding a program!
