SHORELINE – With his team in the midst of a down-to-the-wire race for a district tournament berth, Shorewood High School baseball coach Wyatt Tonkin unleashed a carefully crafted strategy.
Call it a pitching parade.
You can also call it a success.
Tonkin sent a season-high five Thunderbird pitchers to the mound Monday, and the combination proved to be just enough to overcome the Jackson Timberwolves 5-4 in a Western Conference South Division baseball game at Shorewood High. None of the pitchers appeared in more than two innings and they combined to limit Jackson’s powerful lineup to just five hits.
With one game remaining in the regular season, Shorewood (12-5 in division, 13-6 overall) stayed in the hunt for a slot in the Class 4A District 1 tourney, which begins Saturday. The T-birds clinched no worse than a three-way tie for third (Four 4A Wesco South teams qualify for districts).
Despite losing, Jackson (13-4, 15-4) clinched a district berth thanks to a Mountlake Terrace (14-3, 16-3) victory over Edmonds-Woodway (11-6, 13-6) and a Kamiak (11-6, 12-6) loss against Meadowdale. First-place Terrace also clinched a berth and no worse than a tie for first, leaving Shorewood, Kamiak and E-W to fight for the final two spots.
Shorewood plays at Jackson today in the regular-season finale for both teams.
Steve McCall and Chris Kearns both drove in two runs for Shorewood, which has bounced back from a stretch in late April and early May when it lost five of six games. The low point came when Shorewood allowed 11 runs in one inning during a 15-11 loss against E-W on April 22.
“It took us a couple games to recover from that – from parents to coaches to players,” Tonkin said. “It was one of those innings that you want to wash away the next day, but you just can’t.”
With the memories of that inning safely in the past, the Thunderbirds have won three consecutive games. Freshman Clinton Lingren, Shorewood’s third pitcher on Monday, threw two scoreless innings to earn his first career victory. Third baseman Adam Hammer’s RBI single in the bottom of the fifth provided the winning margin.
After taking a 2-0 lead in the top of the third inning, Jackson watched Shorewood storm back to score five runs over the next three innings and grab a 5-2 lead. Curt Nelson’s two-run home run in the top of the sixth pulled the Timberwolves within 5-4, but Shorewood reliever Isaac English promptly got his team out of danger and later pitched a 1-2-3 seventh for the save.
Sophomore Kawika Emsley-Pai hit a solo homer and Chris Lynch had two hits for Jackson, which lost consecutive games for the first time this season. Jackson coach Kirk Nicholson downplayed Shorewood’s pitching strategy. “We still had plenty of opportunities,” Nicholson said. “(Shorewood) ended up on the good end of a one-run game. Things happen.”
“We’re in,” Nicholson continued, referring to his team clinching a district tourney spot despite losing. “We’re not worried about where we’re at or anything else.”
Explaining his pitching-parade strategy, Shorewood’s Tonkin said he didn’t want to let Jackson’s vaunted lineup, which averages more than seven runs per game, make adjustments against a pitcher over several innings, especially at Shorewood’s hitter-friendly ballpark.
Tonkin said he also used the strategy against Mount Vernon in the state tournament several years ago. However, “It didn’t work out as well as it did today,” Tonkin said, “because we won the game 15-13. I threw the whole staff at (Mount Vernon) and said ‘Here, pick one out.’”
At Shoreline
Jackson0020020 – 450
Shorewood002210x – 571
Bowen, Oh (5) and Mohrweis. Tharaldson, Kulseth (2), Lingren (4), Lombardo (6), English (6) and Rockey. WP-Lingren (1-0). LP-Bowen (3-2). 2B-Wahl (J), Whittle (S), McCall, Kearns (S). HR-Emsley-Pai (J), Nelson (J). Records-Jackson 13-4 in league, 15-4 overall. Shorewood 12-5, 13-6.
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