KENT — For three innings, the Lake Stevens baseball team went blow-for-blow with defending 4A state champion Puyallup, but three errors came back to bite the No. 2 seed from Wesco in an 8-2 loss in the opening round of this year’s 4A state tournament.
The most costly mistake came in the bottom of the fourth inning when Lake Stevens committed on error on what would have been a groundout to end the inning. Puyallup went on to add two runs after the mistake.
“It kind of took the wind out of our sails,” Lake Stevens head coach Rodger Anderson said. “It’s just so much harder to come back from a three-run deficit than a one-run deficit.”
Puyallup starting pitcher Chris Micheles pitched well, but Lake Stevens wasn’t without its chances.
“We had runners in scoring position a couple of times,” Anderson said. “You’ve got to give their pitcher credit, he had nine strikeouts, but we had chances and couldn’t take advantage.”
Even after giving up two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, Lake Stevens continued to fight. The Vikings finally got on the board in the top of the sixth inning with a home run by junior Jacob Eason.
Despite being a junior, Anderson said Eason was likely playing his last baseball game at Lake Stevens. Eason also plays quarterback on the football team and is one of the highest-ranked recruits in the country. Eason has verbally committed to Georgia and is on track to graduate high school early next January so he can enroll at Georgia for spring practice.
“To have someone with that much natural ability has really helped,” Anderson said of Eason. “We have had a lot of other guys that have really stepped up in Justin Brown and Chase Ridder. To have three guys at the top of our order that are going to play Division-1 (in college), it’s been pretty special to have that.”
Brown is going on to play at WSU and Ridder, who finished 2-for-4 with a double, will play at Seattle University.
Lake Stevens graduated 10 seniors a year ago and many expected this to be a rebuilding year, but the Vikings defied the odds for a fourth consecutive trip to the state tournament.
“I’m really happy that we were able to put it together this year because this is a really fun group of guys,” Anderson said.
Anderson, who has been coaching for 31 years, admits that he had contemplated retirement at season’s end, but this year’s group of Vikings has him sure he will return for another season.
“I had so much fun with these guys that I can’t retire yet,” he said.
At Art Wright Field
Lake Stevens 000 001 1 — 2 6 3
Puyallup 100 205 x — 8 6 2
Skyler Swords, Riley Crane (6), Max Gluck (6) and Andrew Bustard. Chris Micheles and Brendan Illies. WP—Micheles. LP—Swords. 2B—Chase Ridder (LS), C.J. Kriphaenne (P), Kenton Robillard (P). HR—Jacob Eason (LS), Illies (P). Records—Lake Stevens 15-10. Puyallup 21-4.
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