CARNATION — After 10 action-packed innings, nobody won … unless you count the darkness.
The Cascade Conference baseball game between Archbishop Murphy and Cedarcrest Wednesday at Tolt Middle School was suspended because the officiating crew decided it was too dark to go on. There are no lights at the field. High school games are seven-inning affairs, unless of course, they run into extra innings like Wednesday’s contest did.
The clash between teams fighting for the conference’s top spot started at 4 p.m. and was stopped more than 31/2 hours later with the score tied 5-5. Play resumes 3 p.m. Friday at Tolt. It will be followed by the final battle of a three-game series that began Monday.
The situation poses an unusual challenge for Murphy (8-2 Cascade Conference) and Cedarcrest (10-3). As the regular season winds down, both teams hope to snare one of the league’s two automatic berths in the Class 2A District 1 tournament.
“It will be weird to start again because obviously at the end here you’re hanging on every pitch and everybody’s intensity is real high,” first-year Murphy head coach Mark Potoshnik said. “It’s hard to start at that same level and that will be the challenge for us.”
Scott Goldsberry, in his sixth season as Cedarcrest’s coach, echoed the same sentiment.
“That’s tough to try to capture that emotion again and the intensity of the moment when you’re in that kind of a battle,” Goldsberry said.
The teams generated loads of big hits, clutch defensive plays, baserunning blunders and missed opportunities Wednesday. But for all the successes and failures, every player walked off the field with basically the same feeling, an odd sensation that falls in between winning and losing.
“Intense,” is how Murphy junior Casey Robinett described the experience. He hit a two-run home run off Cedarcrest starting pitcher Kyle Olson in the top of the fifth inning. Robinett’s blast soared over the left-center field fence and gave the Wildcats a 4-3 lead.
It didn’t last long. Cedarcrest tied it in the bottom of the fifth when Ernie Child, the first hitter, smacked a solo homer to left field.
Murphy scored another run in the sixth but Cedarcrest evened it at 5-5 in the bottom of the seventh. Jeffrey Coble scored on Dakota Bunce’s two-out single up the middle.
Bunce (3-for-4, one homer, two runs batted in) and Child (a double, a homer, two RBI) were Cedarcrest’s offensive stars.
The Red Wolves nearly won it in the bottom of the 10th. But Robinett, Murphy’s third pitcher of the day, picked up a two-out dribbler and tagged Cedarcrest’s Jared Klingenberg, who tried to score from third base.
Murphy, which has won eight consecutive games, beat Cedarcrest 3-1 Monday in Everett. The Wildcats could have pulled away a few times Wednesday but stranded 13 runners.
“We seem to be giving each other opportunities but either we can’t get it done or neither team just wants to jump out and take it,” Goldsberry said. “It’s two teams battling it out and playing well and making plays when they need to.”
Cedarcrest and Murphy are in a fight with Lakewood (9-3 in league) for conference supremacy. Friday’s outcomes in Carnation could clear up the tight race.
“It will be a big day for the whole league,” said Potoshnik.
Sure, unless Murphy and Cedarcrest stay tied forever.
Said Goldsberry, in an obvious but accurate post-game comment, “We’re pretty evenly matched.”
Writer Mike Cane: mcane@heraldnet.com. Check out the prep sports blog Double Team at www.heraldnet.com/doubleteam.
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