Steel Lake Little League staved off elimination with a clutch, come from behind 7-4 defeat of Bonney Lake/Sumner in a loser-out game of the District 10 All-Star Majors baseball tournament on a comfortable night at Sunset Park on Wednesday, July 14.

"We didn't commit five errors like we did on Tuesday (in a loss to Auburn)," said Steel Lake manager Ken Allen. "You gotta catch the ball. Our guys fielded the ball, we had base runners and got timely hits."

For the first part of the game, the conflict resembled dueling World War II battleships with both teams exchanging heavy fire.

In the beginning, Steel Lake created the lead and the momentum by onloading its lethal armaments in the first inning. Michael Ziccarelli's lead off walk followed by two wild pitches and a walk to Brycen Allen positioned runners at first and third with no outs. Fitch delivered a sacrifice fly out to center field for a 1-0 SL lead with a runner on first base.

Following a fielder's choice ground out, Steel Lake still had a runner on first, but with two outs. Left-handed hitting Matthew Roybal then had an opposite field fly that had "gone, home run all the way" written on it as Steel Lake concluded its attack with a 3-0 lead.

BLS returned fire in the top of the second inning by tallying two runs on three hits before continuing its outburst in the third inning.

A dropped fly ball followed by a wild pitch sent a Bonney Lake/Sumner runner to second base with no outs. Although the next two batters struck out, Josiah Fidecaro's long home run over the center field fence earned BLS a 4-3 advantage.

As the game became more pitching and defense oriented, runs were much more difficult to gain.

Steel Lake evened the score in the fourth inning on a base running event. Christian Jones drew a lead off base on balls ahead of special pinch runner Fitch advancing to second base on a wild pitch. The pitcher's throw on Tyson Sonnenfeld's short ground ball drew the first baseman off the bag while also allowing Fitch to reach third base. When the next batter came up, the runner on first base dashed for second and got caught in a rundown. While BLS concentrated on eventually tagging out the runner, Fitch scored to make the score 4-4 as the teams went to the final two innings.

After struggling for three innings, Steel Lake's defense and pitching closed off Bonney Lake/Sumner's avenues to scoring which allowed the Lake's bats to bring back the bounty.

Mason De La Cruz drew a walk after one out was recorded gainst SL in the fifth inning. One out later, Brycen Allen was hit by a pitch. Fitch's high fly to right field dropped in for a triple, driving home two runs to put Steel Lake in control, 6-4. Later in the inning, with runners on second and third, Roybal chipped a run-scoring single to enlarge the margin to 7-4.

"Our team did really well," recalled Roybal. "The bats were dead for awhile, but we got them back in time to win."

James Fitch then set down BLS in order to close out the game.

"We had great defense by Mason De La Cruz and great play by our entire infield," stated James Fitch, who closed out the game with two innings of perfect relief, setting down all six batters he faced. "This brought up our morale. (Starting pitcher) Brycen Allen pitched a great four innings."