Mules Baseball

On Wednesday, the Wahkiakum Mules baseball team hosted the Toledo Riverhawks and lost 12-1.

“Our youth and inexperience showed against a very tough Toledo team,” Coach Garrett Radcliffe said. “Unfortunately, they jumped on us early and never quite looked back. We did manage to get some runners on and bases loaded scenarios against their ace. We just struggled to get the big, timely hit to cash in on it all.”

Thursday’s game against Toledo was postponed till Friday, and a lack of umpires meant a last minute decision to move the game to Castle Rock.

“There, it was a bit more of the same story with the final score also being 12-1,” Radcliffe said. “Our defense improved greatly over the last game, unfortunately so did Toledo’s hitting. It just seemed to find all the right places. On the other side, it seemed like every ball we hit found a glove.”

“Baseball is a tough sport that way, but luckily we can experience this now, mature, and learn from it all,” Radcliffe added.

On Monday, the Mules hosted a double-header against Adna.

“Game one started out very well with our defense getting out of some early runners on jams,” Radcliffe said. “Our bats simply could not come alive as we ended with 14 strikeouts. The Adna ace was dealing certainly, but we were able to get him to reach the max pitch limit meaning we were still taking tough at-bats. We mustered up some runs once he was out and ended the game with the bases loaded.”

“Game two did not go very well,” he said. “We ended it after five innings with a score of 10-0. We were able to make solid contact at the plate, just once again that contact could not find a gap. This, paired with defensive miscues led to this game getting away from us.”

"Despite the lopsided scores this week, I still felt we improved each game,” Radcliffe concluded. “Our pitching held strong through some tough situations. We bounced back after facing some very tough starting pitching.”

The regular season ends this weekend. The Mules travel to Winlock on Friday and host them the final day, with the first pitch at noon.

“This will be an important series as we make a final push to the district tournament,” Radcliffe said.