Mission accomplished for 2019 by Medical Lake 2018 AA Legion team

It was a great way to finish and chart a course for the future of Medical Lake baseball.

The Medical Lake Post 196 American Legion baseball team's 11-6 victory over West Valley in the second game of a doubleheader on July 11 closed out the season on a positive note.

"That was a good win for us, the kids were excited," head coach Austin Sharp said. "It was a good way to go out."

Earlier in the week, the team lost the first game of the doubleheader and then 8-2 on July 10 to Deer Park.

Despite a 9-21 overall record, Sharp took a great deal away from the summer season. "The biggest thing this summer was getting them to experience what I want to do," Sharp said. This was his rookie season as both head coach of the school's Northeast A League team that finished 3-16 and the American Legion program.

They struggled at times but definitely got better, Sharp said. He saw improvement for the players he expects to see turn out next March.

"Next year I don't know how strong we'll be but we'll be a lot better than we were this year," Sharp said.

The biggest improvements came from youngsters like eighth-grader Joe Griffey and current freshman Brent Keith who "Both got to do a lot of good things," Sharp said.

Most of the team were juniors who will become seniors. "Mason Hammond did really well at the plate all summer," Sharp said, adding he will be a solid outfielder in 2019.

He said that some good performances from ML's single-A team means some of those players will make the jump, too.

An area where the team will need to improve is on the defensive side of the ball. Errors, many of them fundamental, point to the need to get better athletically.

In the West Valley victory, Mason Hammond, Seth Mayer and Trevor Hurt-Moran all had a pair of hits, one of Hammond's a double.

Sam Galleon started the game and went three innings before being replaced by Griffey with the bases loaded in the third. "He got out of that inning without giving up a run and shut down West Valley the rest of the game," Sharp said.

That allowed the game to become a running experiment in baseball basics.

"We did a lot of different stuff offensively, we hit the ball, we were able to bunt for sacrifices and base hits," Sharp said. "We did the things I wanted to do all year."

In the first game, errors that have dogged the team all season played a part in the outcome. "We had five errors and allowed them to score when the team (WV) was not doing a lot," Sharp said.

But so did when Medical Lake got many of their 11 hits, where a lack of timely hitting left numerous runners on base. Four Medical Lake players - Rory Schuller, Bennett Soliday, Nick Thompson and Hurt-Moran - all had a pair of hits.

The loss to Deer Park was another matter of when and where their 10 hits happened.

"We hit the ball but everything was with two outs," Sharp said. Medical Lake loaded the bases four times and only scored two runs.

"All it took was a ground ball to get them out of it," Sharp added.

Griffey, Schuller and Soliday each had a pair of hits.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].