Jackson batters Mountlake Terrace

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE

Round one goes to Jackson.

In a clash between two of the top baseball teams in the Western Conference South Division, the Timberwolves battered Mountlake Terrace for 15 hits en route to an 11-4 victory at Mountlake Terrace High School.

The Wolfpack and Hawks came into the April 15 contest tied for first place in the league, so the victory left Jackson (8-1 Wesco South Division, 11-1 overall) atop the standings. Mountlake Terrace (7-2, 8-5) fell into a second place tie with Meadowdale. Both teams were scheduled to play again on April 16 after The Enterprise’s deadline.

The Hawks hurt their own cause with some poor defensive play. Three errors helped Jackson to extend its scoring rallies.

“We didn’t have our best defensive game,” said Mountlake Terrace coach Andrew Watters. “I think that to keep those guys in check, you’ve got to make all the plays defensively and I think we gave up too many bases on defense today. I knew they were going to get some hits, but unfortunately it was just too many mistakes.”

After opening league play with seven straight victories, the Hawks have dropped their last two. Edmonds-Woodway beat Mountlake Terrace 11-5 on April 11.

In both losses, the Hawks suffered from a lack of timely hitting.

“We’ve struggled where we haven’t gotten any clutch hits with runners in scoring position, so I think we need to improve on that,” Watters said.

Jackson, however, took full advantage of its numerous scoring opportunities.

The Hawks manufactured a run in the second after Jaykob Sells drew a one-out walk. He stole second, moved to third on a passed ball and then scored on a wild pitch.

The lead didn’t last long as the Timberwolves pushed across two runs in the third inning on a two-RBI triple by sophomore third baseman Mike Wishko. One of the two Jackson runners who scored reached first base on an infield error.

In the fourth, Jackson senior left fielder Trevor Malo and senior pitcher Ricky Kellogg hit back-to-back singles. The two moved up 90 feet when Mountlake Terrace pitcher Jake Theis was called for a balk. Malo then scored on a sacrifice fly by junior catcher Bryan Morse.

Mountlake Terrace cut the lead to 3-2 in the fourth when Jacob Mann hit a grounder off of Jackson pitcher Ricky Kellogg and into center field to score Sells.

The Wolfpack responded with a pair of runs the next inning to extend its lead to 5-2. With sophomore second baseman Kennedy Kinkade on third and Wishko on first, senior shortstop Brandon Wang hit a single to center field that was momentarily bobbled by the outfielder. Kinkade easily scored and the error enabled Wishko also to score.

“We started off the season playing very good defense,” Watters said. “Then recently we’ve been a little average, so it’s an area we need to improve upon as we move forward.”

Kellogg allowed only two runs on four hits in five innings of work on the mound. The Jackson pitcher, who struck out four, was 2-for-4 with a double and two RBI. The start was the first of the season for Kellogg, who had not been able to pitch because of a tender arm.

“I was more impressed (with Kellogg) than the 11 runs,” said Jackson coach Kirk Nicholson. “He actually had some heat on the ball today. … I’d say he was in the mid-80s or upper. I thought he had some good stuff.”

Mann agreed that Kellogg threw well.

“He had a pretty good fastball and he stayed away from us,” Mann said. “His curveball stayed away and he kept it low.”

Kellogg reached his pitch count at the end of the fifth inning and was replaced by freshman Nickolas Kiel, who pitched the final two innings.

The Timberwolves added two more runs in the sixth to take a 7-2 advantage. Kinkade drove in a run with a double and Wishko hit a sacrifice fly to score another run. Theis was relieved by junior Bill Lechtenberg with one out in the inning.

“He’s a pretty good pitcher,” Nicholson said of Theis. “I think he left the ball up a couple of times against us and he got unlucky. … We had our day today, but frankly it’s hard for a pitcher to get into any type of a groove just because of the weather.”

Mountlake Terrace scored two runs in the sixth to cut the lead to 7-4. Second baseman Andrew Woeck drove in a run with a single and Mann’s groundout to second base also scored a run. The Hawks’ rally was cut short when Wang made a diving catch on a line drive by shortstop Garrett Totten.

“It was nice to see that we made a little comeback at the end and we hit some balls hard,” Watters said.

Jackson also finished strong with four runs in the seventh. Kellogg drove in two runs with a double, while Kinkade and Oh each had RBI-scoring doubles.

Nicholson was pleased with his team’s overall play.

“I thought we did a lot of things really good,” Nicholson said. “We played defense pretty well. I feel real good about this group of kids. We kept loose the whole time. We had a good time. We had fun with things. I think that is the key to us – once we try to take ourselves too serious everything goes bad.”