Vikes clinch Narrows in rebound win
Published 11:00 am Saturday, May 1, 2004
POULSBO — A mere 48 hours after the North Kitsap baseball team endured its only league loss of the season, the bats were back out en force Wednesday, pulverizing a shaky Olympic Trojan defense for an 11-1 win.
The Vikings didn’t mince words, hitting Olympic up for 10 runs in the bottom of the first inning and sending a message early that North Kitsap would soon be sitting alone atop the Narrows Bridge Division permanently.
“We just put the ball into play and let their defense do the work,” said North’s lead-off man Travis Tobin. “And we had some timely hitting.”
The second place Trojans committed five errors on the day — two in the first inning alone — and couldn’t bring to an end a two-out inning that saw NK score nine runs in the span.
“The one thing we didn’t do was throw strikes and get ahead in the count early,” said Olympic coach Nate Andrews. “When you don’t do that to good hitters, you’re going to get yourself into trouble.”
North Kitsap (12-1 in league, 15-3 overall) was certainly vengeful after a 12-game winning streak was snapped Monday versus Gig Harbor. But when the second the loss was over, the Vikings were eager for revenge, said North coach Steve Frease.
“There was no question they wanted to compete (today) — give the kids credit,” Frease said.
“A lot of us were upset about the loss and we wanted to clinch,” Tobin said.
The Vikings drew three walks to start the game. With the bases loaded and nobody out, NK clean-up man Marcus Curtis grounded out to second to score the first run of the day. After Jeff Camus struck out the Vikings, in seemingly routine fashion, busted out nine more runs in the first inning.
Following a Miles Thompson RBI single and another Jordan Henry ground-ball single to left to keep the bases loaded, North’s Andy Sturza nailed a pitch to deep left center to clear the bases and earn a double.
“They have the ability to hit the ball like that every game,” Frease said. “And that’s just good concentration.”
The Vikings didn’t end the hit parade there. After Tobin and Dan Peck hit singles, Jared Prince hit a double and Curtis hit a hard single up the third base line. Camus popped out to end the 10-run inning.
North scored one more run in the bottom of the second on a Tobin sacrifice fly. Olympic’s only run of the day came when Shea Baumgartner hit a triple and the Trojans’ Jeff Shaw hit a sacrifice ground-ball to bring in Baumgartner.
Olympic (9-4 in league and 13-6 overall) will likely have to fight for a spot in the upcoming Narrows’ playoffs next weekend at Bremerton’s Pendergast Fields.
North Kitsap will play Bellarmine in a make-up game Tuesday and then will be at Pendergast for the Narrows League title game versus Capital May 8.
“We’ve got plenty of reason to stay focused,” Frease said. “We have to recognize that we have to take this in stride.”
Tobin said clinching the top spot had been an expectation all along but that the team’s expectations are far from satisfied.
“We had this goal at the beginning of the season,” Tobin commented. “And we’re expecting to win state.”
