MILL CREEK — As season openers go, it would be hard to top the Lynnwood-Jackson baseball game on Tuesday afternoon.
Two promising teams went at it, and in the end the visiting Royals prevailed behind the capable arm of pitcher Brice Foster. The senior right-hander went the distance in an exciting 2-1 victory that came down to a final bang-bang play in the field.
Foster, who needed one final scoreless inning to wrap up a complete-game gem, instead saw Jackson put runners on first and second with one out in the seventh via a third-strike wild pitch and an infield error. The next Timberwolves batter sent a sharp single into right field, but the Royals executed a terrific relay throw to the plate to erase the potential tying run.
Moments later, third baseman Carson Speegle, after mishandling a grounder, retrieved the loose ball and barely beat the runner to the base for a game-ending force out.
“I thought we did a lot things well,” said Lynnwood coach Fraser Dizard. “There’s also a few things we need to work on. … But it was a fun, exciting game, and it came down to the last few outs.”
Jackson coach Kirk Nicholson called it the kind of game “that you want to get ready for league play. And it doesn’t get any better than that. They throw their guy for seven innings and we still had a chance to win it at the end.”
Even in defeat, Nicholson added, “it was a good baseball game. A really good baseball game.”
Lynnwood scored in the first inning, wrapping two singles around a walk and a wild pitch. The Royals added another solo run in the fourth on back-to-back leadoff walks and a throwing error on a sacrifice bunt.
Jackson, meanwhile, was having trouble solving Foster, who cleverly mixed two-seam and four-seam fastballs with a slider, curve and changeup, and all from varying arm angles. The T-wolves had just three singles through five innings, but in the sixth they got a one-out double from Anton Soderqvist and, one pitch later, a sharp RBI single to right field by Jeremy Martin.
The game came down to the bottom of the seventh. Foster got the first out on an infield bouncer and he struck out the second hitter, Daylan Johnson, on a low breaking ball. But the third-strike pitched bounced past catcher Brady Girgus and Johnson sprinted safely to first. He then took second base and teammate Diego Altamirano reached first when the Royals failed to execute a force-out toss to second.
Carter Booth followed with a line drive single to right and the T-wolves waved Johnson to the plate. But right fielder John Henry Ward fired to first baseman Rome Boyer, and his relay throw to Girgus was in time to retire the sliding Johnson.
Speegle then ended the game by deflecting and retrieving a ball hit by Jackson’s Ben Steck, and then winning a race to the bag ahead of Altamirano.
Foster threw more than 80 pitches in his seven innings, and that was more than Dizard had planned before the game. Twice he tried to take his senior hurler out — once after six innings and again after the T-wolves had two runners on in the seventh — and both times Foster talked him out of it.
“So I said, ‘All right, Brice. It’s your game to win or lose.’ And it worked out well,” Dizard said.
The Royals are coming off a trip to the Class 3A regionals a year ago, and despite a lot of new faces Dizard said he is “very optimistic. I’ve told the guys I expect to win league, to win district again, and then we’ll see what happens at state.”
As for Jackson, “I have a lot of young guys that are doing some things and I’ve also got some guys that are returning from injuries,” Nicholson said. “So I don’t know where we’re at. Ask me next week after I get done with five non-league games. … But it’s great to play games like this.”
At Jackson H.S.
Individual highlights: Lynnwood—Brice Foster (WP,1-0; CG), Kyler McMahan (3B); Jackson—Anton Soderqvist (2B). Records—Lynnwood 1-0 overall. Jackson 0-1.
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