3A baseball: Southridge falls to Lake Washington 5-4 in state semis

There were times during Friday morning’s 5-4 loss to Lake Washington High School that the Southridge baseball team looked every bit the part of a championship contender.

Playing in front of almost 1,000 fans at Pasco’s Gesa Stadium in the Class 3A state semifinals, the Suns rose to the occasion, putting together smart at-bats and turning bad base running into extra bases.

Jashaun Simon made a full-layout catch charging in from center field that helped Southridge escape a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the seventh. It’s the kind of play that resonates through the years.

And staff ace Bradley Morgan put together nine innings of grit and guile to keep the potent Kangaroos lineup mostly at bay.

But in the end, the Suns also caused their own downfall, with five defensive errors leaving the door wide open for the visitors from Kirkland. A pair of infield miscues in the ninth turned a leadoff single into the winning run.

“We didn’t defend it very well,” Simon said. “We needed to cut those errors down, or else we would have won.”

Lake Washington (22-2) advances to Saturday’s championship game against Lakeside (22-4) at 4 p.m., while Southridge (21-6) has another 10 a.m. date, this time with Sumner (20-7) for third place.

Whatever the outcome Saturday, it will be the Suns’ best finish since winning it all in 2004. But that wasn’t much comfort after Friday’s heartbreak.

Good through 4 innings

Morgan was effective if not wholly efficient early on, walking three but working his way around the zone and keeping LW off balance. The ’Roos pushed a run across in the second thanks in part to a balk call. And Morgan just got better as the game went on.

The Southridge hitters, meanwhile, made LW junior ace Nick Ludwig work extra hard just to get the simplest of outs.

The Suns got on the board in the first when Jake Harvey singled to lead off the game. No. 2 hitter Bryce Grigg popped up a bunt, but it landed just behind Ludwig charging in from the mound and turned into a hit.

Then Jake Kirchhoff tried to give himself up on a bunt, but LW catcher Matt Scheffler — who really likes to throw the ball around — tried to pick off Harvey at second, only to throw high and have the throw glance off the second baseman’s glove and bound into center.

The runners moved up, and Harvey scored one out later on Ryan Sanders’ grounder to short.

Grigg singled on a 1-2 pitch to spark a two-run rally in the third. Simon singled after a nine-pitch at-bat in the fourth and eventually scored on Grigg’s squeeze bunt for a 4-1 lead.

It was the end of the day for Ludwig, who was coming off a two-hit shutout of Kennewick in the quarterfinals. But it also was the end of Southridge’s offense. LW reliever Connor Johnson threw ground ball after ground ball for five innings, facing one over the minimum.

“We just didn’t plate enough,” Suns coach Tim Sanders said. “Had guys in scoring position, and didn’t plate ’em enough. Obviously, we didn’t play catch.”

Then it went south

Lake Washington caught up in the fifth, loading the bases with no outs on two hits and a dropped fly ball.

A tailor-made double play ball up the middle seemed as though it would minimize the damage, but the throw to first sailed, and two runs scored on the play. An RBI single followed for a tie game.

It was the last time the ’Roos would get to Morgan until the ninth and that final unearned run.

“He just did what he’s done for the last two years,” Tim Sanders said, “put us in a position to win a ballgame.”

“He pitched an absolutely fantastic game,” Simon added, “and it’s hard that we weren’t able to come through for him.”

Actually, the defense came up huge in the seventh to help send the game into extra frames, and it happened with the bases loaded and no outs.

First, cleanup hitter Kevin Nakahara hit a grounder to Kyle Harvey at short, who was playing way in and had an easy play at the plate. Then Paul Falco hit a dying fly to center, and Simon made a spectacular diving catch.

Simon said he wasn’t sure if the ball would hold up long enough: “I had no idea. I just wanted to come through for the team, and ended up working for that inning.”

The inning ended when Jake Harvey snared a hot shot to third. The defensive stand seemed to shift all the momentum to the Suns, but a 1-2-3 bottom of the seventh left the door open.

A bumpy finish

After Lake Washington got the unearned run to go ahead in the ninth, the Suns put together a little rally in the bottom of the inning.

Simon drew a one-out walk, and Jake Harvey hit a bounder up the middle. It took a bad hop, forcing LW shortstop Austin Lively to make a radical adjustment. It appeared to many that he missed the tag, but Simon was called out. Tim Sanders, who had seen a similar call get overturned for Lake Washington earlier in the game, discussed the play with the umpires and eventually was invited to leave the field.

NOTES: Jake Harvey and Grigg each had a pair of hits at the top of the order, and Ryan Sanders drove in a pair of runs. ... Simon added a nice deke play to his game in center, keeping a runner close to the bag at second to turn a bloop single into an 8-6-5 force out at third.

This story was originally published May 27, 2016 at 4:57 PM with the headline "3A baseball: Southridge falls to Lake Washington 5-4 in state semis."