The Rochester baseball team had a chance to clinch a league title on Tuesday, but instead, the Warriors are locked into the 1A Evergreen League’s No. 2 spot after losing to Montesano 3-0 and 18-8 in two ends of a road doubleheader.
“We had nothing to lose today,” Rochester coach Brad Quarnstrom said, noting the Warriors were in second entering the day. “We only had something to gain.”
Rochester was right with Montesano in Game 1, where Tayden Martin threw into the sixth.
He only gave up two hits, but he walked seven batters, which helped lead to Montesano’s three runs.
“Tayden threw extremely well,” Quarnstrom said. “A few too many free passes, but in terms of competing and making pitches when he had to, he did a fantastic job.”
Tyler Huston threw the final two-thirds of the sixth, while Easton Singleton, Rugar Culp, and Huston tallied Rochester’s three hits.
The Warriors jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning of Game 2, and they led 3-1 entering the bottom of the second, but Montesano scored 15 runs over the second and third to break the game open.
Rochester scored five runs in the fifth to make the scoreline a bit more respectable before Montesano scored two in the bottom of the sixth for the run-rule walk-off.
“We did some things well in the top of the first,” Quarnstrom said. “We put up some runs late to stretch it, but it wasn’t really a game.”
The Warriors (11-6, 9-3 1A Evergreen) will host Montesano in its league final on Friday before hosting Rainier in its regular-season finale on Tuesday, May 5. After that, they are set to host a district quarterfinal on May 11 against the No. 3 team from the Trico. As of the end of play on April 28, that team would be Castle Rock.
“Everything that we still want is still in front of us and attainable,” Quarnstrom said. “We already proved to ourselves that we can play with them. That first game proved to us that we can play with anybody in the state, but we gotta play all phases.”
