By Laurie Rasmussen

The 9-10 West Seattle Little League All Stars began their quest at state on Sunday July 14th. They faced off against Northwest little League, from North Seattle. West Seattle started the game sluggish. The first inning went well with only 2 runs allowed, however when WS got up to bat the bats seemed to have cooled off since their last game. The first inning Westside got a single from Nate Rasmussen, but was then left stranded at third.

While in the second inning NWLL pitcher struggled, Westside was able to score 4 runs and leave the bases loaded with some great base running and working the count at the plate.

West Seattle's defense struggled allowing for NWLL hits to make it past the infield allowing for more runs to score. Bowie Hichens made a great save in right field to hit the cutoff man Spencer Burgess at second who then threw to catcher Nate Rasmussen at home getting the out. It was a defensive highlight of the game and lifted our Westsiders spirits. However, the battle was lost 14-4 in 4 innings. WSLL entered the losers bracket with their first loss this tournament season.

In the losers bracket WSLL met and lost to a formidable opponent Riverview (from the Spokane area) on Monday at 3:00. The game started rough and soon got out of reach for West Seattle. Our usually great pitching was not up to this level of the competition. After trying to find a way out of a large deficit WSLL failed to get batters in scoring position or get many hits on the board with an excellent Riverview pitching squad. It was a tough game on the otherwise happy and competitive 9-10 All Star team. The offense and
defense had a hard time in Oak Harbor. The competition was fierce. Our Westsiders learned a valuable lesson on competition, competitiveness and congeniality and will forever remember this All Star State tournament experience.