Bright sunshine against the backdrop of blue skies was insufficient to clear out the clouds that darkened the results for Class 2B SeaTac League champion Seattle Lutheran of West Seattle in a five-inning nonleague 11-1 girls fastpitch loss at Class 1A Cascade Christian on the Shackett Field venue in Puyallup.

"We made errors," said Saints head coach Mark Henderson. "The fielding was messy and we didn't hit the ball. We beat this team early in the season, so it's possible that the girls may have thought this would be easier and let down. Our big win a few days ago to win the league championship (Seattle Lutheran's sixth straight) against Quilcene was really emotional and could have had an effect. Everything (strategy wise) I tried to get us back into the game backfired. It was just that type of game. Normally, we're a fairly good hitting team. There was a let down. Their left fielder (Jeni Haas) and third baseman (Emily Curry) fielded well. We're still working on our defense."

The Saints (9-7 overall) still have two nonleague encounters to stay active before playing a winner-to-state, loser-out match up in the Bi-district tournament held at Stanwood on Saturday, May 21.

Seattle Lutheran opened the game scoring with a tally in the top of the first inning. After two outs were recorded, Kendra Rancich punched an infield single. Katherine Smith's walk plus a throwing error and fielding error scored what would become Seattle Lutheran's only run of the game.

A pattern of Saint fielding miscues surfaced in the bottom of the first inning when Cascade Christian's Cougars scored three runs on no hits and two errors. CCHS banged out four runs on three of its game total of five hits and two errors in the third inning to pull away for a 7-1 lead.

An error and and a walk set Shae Reilly up for a three-run homer that keyed a four-run fourth for an 11-1 lead that SL failed to even dent before the game ended on the 10-run mercy rule.

The absence of clutch hitting surfaced on the Saints' side when they had runners on base every inning, but could not score after the opening inning.

With two outs in the second inning, consecutive walks to Emily Mason and Sam Foy had SL in position, but the runners moved no further.

Rancich singled with one out in the third inning before Katherine Smith's bunt was mishandled. A line drive, fly ball out to left field resulted in an inning ending double play when outfielder Jeni Haas alertly threw to second base to double off the advancing runner.

In the fourth inning, Sam Depew's one out single ahead of Mason's walk led to no runs.

The final Saint scoring threat was Danya Van Trojan's ground ball that turned into a two-base error. Once again, the runner was unable to score.

Seattle Lutheran's next nonleague game before tournament action was scheduled for May 17 at Class 1A Seattle Christian.