Pac West manager Joe Antush spoke some challenging words to his players following PW's 12-3 loss to Redmond, which followed after an opening day win (July 17) over Mulkiteo area's Mill Creek, 9-7, in the Seniors State Little League All Stars Tournament at Hartman Park in Redmond July 18.

"We have to come ready to play tomorrow (Monday) or we're going home," said Antush, talking to his players after the game. He saw some things against Redmond that were not very good from the game's beginning.

Still talking to his players huddled listening to his thoughts outside the field of play after the loss to Redmond, the home-field team of the tourney, Antush said, "I noticed we were a little lethargic, and lazy out there. So, how are we going to look tomorrow?"

This game Pac West's Senior All Stars looked pretty good early on as Redmond picked up a couple hits and RBIs in the first inning to lead 2-0 after the bottom of the first inning completed.

"Just a couple hits and two runs from it, they were earned," said Antush, adding, "But I am always telling them 'Got to stay away from the big inning,' and 'two runs is no big deal.'"

So, Redmond led 2-0 going into the top of the second, where Johnny Rhodes, a newcomer to the area from Spokane, put the bat to the ball to start the inning, blasting it over the right field fence, 2-1.

"I wasn't even going for a home run," said Rhodes, who started on the mound pitching in this game and did pretty well, all things said, with Redmond being a 4A school, with most of Pac West's players from 3A Highline and Tyee, like Joe's son, Ben.

"I just swung at the first pitch and it was right over the plate," said Rhodes.

Right there.

Pac West was right back in it, with that dropping over the chain link fence and changing the goose egg on their side to a run. And more runs would come soon after as Rhodes pitched well the second inning, shutting out the Redmond hitters.

In the Pac West top of the third, Mitchell McCartney started off with a double blasted, high arcing, into left-centerfield as the ball was only about 10 feet from clearing the fence. Then, Ben Antush hit a chopper that good things happened on as the Redmond pitcher got to the ball halfway down the third base line and looked to third base to try and catch the speedy Mitchell 7/8 of the way there. Seeing that a dry option, he swung around 180 degrees and threw to first base to try to get Antush.

But Antush was maybe listening to the fans telling him, "Hustle, Ben, hustle, beat out the throw," and Antush did just barely stretch a foot to the bag before the ball got there. So, runners at first and third with no outs. The next batter struck out but then Ryan Ward, who pitched a solid five innings against Mill Creek, getting that game's winning pitcher of record honor, smacked the ball, hard to the hole at shortstop.

The Redmond shortstop did get to the ball but there was no play as Ward beat the throw to first base and the Pac West speedy leadoff hitter on the team went home easily on the play too, to make it 2-2.

Hitting the ball, that's a good thing as a "chopper" like Antush's can bring good things.

"At this level of Seniors, it is a big field for these kids, it is important to just put the ball in play," said Antush, whose is a 14, 15, 16 age division. The field gets bigger for these kids after Majors (11-12 age) as the field goes from 60 feet to each base to 90 and pitchers go from throwing from 46 feet away to 60 feet away.

Anyway, after that good job to tie the game against Redmond, two Pac West outs came next, ground outs, and that ended the inning. But the knotted up score would not last for long as Redmond scored four runs in the bottom of the third inning, off three hits and one sacrifice scoring another runner to make it 6-2.

A couple of those three Redmond hits in their third inning were nearly stopped by Pac West infielder McCartney, having a ball get by, barely, as he put the glove down a millimeter from the ball hitting it, that was a hit in the books. And, then a ball hit deep to center field was just over the center fielder's outstretched glove trying to make an over-the-shoulder catch. So, plays that could have maybe been made were not.

So, the score was a four-run gap but Pac West showed again in its top of the fourth inning that they could come back a little with a walk to Cole Porter and a full-count RBI single from McCartney to make it 6-3. So, a run in, with two outs and a runner on base but a strikeout ended that rally. The batter that struck out was Antush, too, who was a solid hitter against Mill Creek at 2-for-3 with an RBI.

So, the hitting, which belted out nine against Mill Creek, including many clutch hits, could not come through in the clutch in this game.

Four were left on base in the first four innings against Redmond while Redmond left only one on base in that time, scoring their rest.

"I could tell in infield warmup before the game they were a little flat," said Antush. "I don't know why. They had a such a good game against Mill Creek."

Redmond broke the game open in their bottom half of the fifth, scoring five runs on four hits, making it 11-3, adding another last run of the game in the bottom of six.

Rhodes spoke after the game on what happened and it had something to do with that "flat" word, more or less.

The momentum of winning against a good charter from Mill Creek was supposed to bring momentum.

"Hoping it was going to be like that," said Rhodes. "We just weren't on top of it. We are going to come back tomorrow (Monday) with our 'A' game. They (Redmond) brought their 'A' game. We just weren't on top (of ours)."

The Mill Creek game was a good start to a game as Pac West hit the ball five times and led, 4-2, after the bottom of the first inning as Mitchell led off by drawing a walk and Antush singled and Conner Erben singled and Ward collected a couple RBI and Rhodes drew a walk and Nick Clothier and Cole Porter and Zac Smith all added to the five-hit first inning parade for Pac West. In the fourth inning , Pac West again hit the ball as Mitchell got a double leading off the inning and Antush's RBI triple brought in Mitchell. A sacrifice from Ward added another run to the then 6-2 score.

Mill Creek scored one run in the top of five before the sixth was more Pac West scoring with Erben and Ward singling and Rhodes and Cody Taylor drawing walks to force in a run and Porter sacrificed for another.

Down, 9-3, Mill Creek rallied for four runs in their last inning at-bats but it was not enough.

Pac West's road is tough but certainly doable. They have to win Monday, then Thursday, Friday, and two Saturday. Last year, the Pac West Seniors team, a group of nearly all different players that moved up to Big League play this year, won games in a row without losing going all the way to the final. There, in the first championship game and then the if necessary championship, Pac West lost.

"I am just happy we could beat a team like Mill Creek," said Antush. "Other teams like Redmond that we played today combine two teams from the regular season while we only have one team."

So, whatever happens in this all stars for this group of Pac West Seniors, they should be proud for taking on state calibre competition and beating it.