Cascade rallies past Snohomish 6-5 after five walks in 7th
Published 9:05 pm Wednesday, April 6, 2016
EVERETT — For six innings of Wednesday’s Wesco 4A baseball game between Snohomish and Cascade, the Panthers were in control.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, their pitchers lost control.
Snohomish walked five batters in the inning, including three with the bases loaded to give the Bruins a come-from-behind 6-5 win and stay unbeaten in league at 3-0.
The Bruins trailed 5-3 going into the bottom of the seventh and Cascade coach Scott Stencil said the strategy was to be aggressive, but when the Panthers’ pitchers started struggling to throw strikes that strategy changed.
“Our approach was to come out aggressively early in the seventh and once some things kind of got going we decided to take a strike from there on and see what happened,” Stencil said. “It just happened to work out today. Usually it doesn’t, for some reason today it did.”
With a two-run lead, Snohomish turned to senior captain Gavin Bullock to close out the game.
“He’s the guy I want on the mound,” Snohomish head coach Kim Hammons said. “He’s the guy I want a ground ball hit to and a pop-up hit to. He hasn’t given up a run in 12 innings so far this year.”
But Wednesday wasn’t Bullock’s day.
He walked two of the first three batters to put the tying run on base, but he did get senior Brennen Hancock to pop out to the shortstop to bring the Bruins down to their last out — an out that never came.
Senior Ryan Colvin singled to left field to load the bases for senior Michael Carter, who became the third Cascade batter to walk in the inning. The walk to Carter forced in senior Dawson Cook to draw the Bruins to within one run at 5-4.
Hammons turned to his bullpen again, bringing in junior Kyle Sandifer, but the result was the same. Sandifer walked junior Andrew Scheuffele to tie the game and causing Hammons to make a third pitching change in the inning.
Hammons brought in senior Luke Kuna, who started on the mound for the Panthers and pitched six strong innings. Kuna walked sophomore Sam Barnes, scoring Colvin for the game-winner.
“Murphy’s Law was in effect,” Hammons said. “Once one thing went bad then another one did. We just couldn’t throw strikes in the last inning. That was just the name of the game. The story of the game was we couldn’t throw a strike in the last inning. The rest of the game we played great.”
Kuna, who is playing high school baseball for the first time after playing golf his first three years of high school, finished the game 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run scored.
“Luke has done virtually everything for us,” Hammons said. “He’s caught, pitched and he’s played third base. He’s done a nice job as a starting pitcher and also as a reliever. He’s been excellent all year long for us. He hits in the clutch and he makes good defensive plays.”
The Bruins knocked the Panthers from the ranks of the unbeaten in league play and are joined by Mount Vernon as the league’s only remaining unbeaten teams.
Stencil is happy his team is off to a fast start, but said there is a lot of season remaining.
“To be 3-0 is exciting,” Stencil said. “Obviously it’s exciting for any team to be 3-0 against any opponent. In the Wesco 4A, it’s going to be a tight race all year. I think everybody is going to beat each other up. Any game that you can win early on is obviously going to help. I guarantee nobody is going to wind up undefeated, so it’s going to come down to who wins the close games and hopefully we continue to find a way to do that.”
At Cascade H.S.
WP: Mitchell Haldi (3 IP, 2 H). LP: Gavin Bullock. Individual highlights: Snohomish—Luke Kuna (6 IP, 5 H, 2 BB; 2-3, RBI, R), Andrew Kane (2-4, 2 RBI), Jake Mulholland (1-2, RBI, 2 R); Cascade—Connor Engrebretson (RBI), Ryan Colvin (2-4, 2B, R). Records—Snohomish 2-1 league, 6-3 overall. Cascade 3-0, 5-4.
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
