Prep baseball: Mountlake Terrace 10, Glacier Peak 1
Published 8:51 pm Thursday, April 12, 2012
GLACIER PEAK — Mountlake Terrace’s Alex Hatch pitched six scoreless innings, striking out 11 and giving up just two hits and the Hawks scored five runs in each of the sixth and seventh innings as the Hawks beat Glacier Peak 10-1 in a Wesco 3A matchup.
The lopsided final score hides what was actually a competitive battle for most of the game.
“It was a great game through five innings, it was nothing-nothing, a great pitchers’ duel,” said Glacier Peak head coach Bob Blair.
Through five innings, Hatch was on his way to 11 strikeouts, and Ben Hackler had already racked up 7. Then the momentum finally shifted.
Glacier Peak walked the first batter of the sixth and Austin Johnson tripled to score a run. Another walk and an out left runners at first and third with only one away. The next batter hit a ground ball past the shortstop, scoring two.
“It was a tough play. He didn’t quite get to it … At that point the wheels just kind of came off,” said Blair.
The win is the fifth in a row for Mountlake Terrace, which leads the Wesco 3A standings.
When asked about the winning streak, Hawks head coach Andrew Watters said his team wasn’t really thinking about that.
“We’re just trying to keep it going … you know, your typical cliches. We’re taking it one game at a time right now,” Watters said. “The standings are really bunched up. We’re playing every game with the idea that we’re in the mix to try to win the league”
Watters also noted that his team has a tough schedule the rest of the way, with most of the games coming against teams in the upper half of the standings.
“A lot of our rivals are still to come in our schedule. We’re just trying to peak at the right time.”
The Hawks play Glacier Peak again tonight, and the win is not helping Watters rest easy. “The score doesn’t reflect how good a quality game that was. … It could have gone either way as far as momentum. We were fortunate we were able to gain momentum at the end.”
At Glacier Peak H.S.
Mountlake Terrace0000055—1070
Glacier Peak0000001—133
Alex Hatch, Connor Clausen (7) and Austin Johnson. Ben Hackler, Christian Jarnagin (6) and Josh Brewer. WP—Hatch. LP—Hackler. 2B—Josh May (GP) 1, Josh Fitch (MT) 1. 3B—Austin Johnson (MT) 1. Records—Mountlake Terrace 7-2 league, 7-4 overall. Glacier Peak 4-3, 6-5.
