BELLINGHAM — Wilder Baseball’s Senior club dropped a pair of contests to Whatcom 19U Post 7 in American Legion play Wednesday, falling 7-4 and 9-5 to the Bellingham-based squad.
Head coach Zac Moore was none too pleased.
“We have to get back to our roots and start playing hard-knock baseball,” Moore said. “I think we have the team to do that, but we haven’t come together yet. There’s no excuses for youth or anything like that. We have some talented kids.”
In game two, Wilder (6-8) struggled through Whatcom’s eight-run third inning as starter Elijah Flodstrom allowed back-to-back triples to open the inning and left the contest with the bases loaded.
Reliever Blake Merideth worked deep into the count for a strikeout of the first batter he faced but yielded a three-run triple to Lincoln Van Diest. It was Van Diest’s second triple of the inning and put Whatcom up 8-1.
Tate Alton drove in a run on a first-inning RBI single for Wilder, while Kaleb Mullen and Colton Romero each had RBI doubles. Alex Angevine singled, advanced on an error and a stolen base and scored on a Flodstrom ground out to round out the team’s scoring.
Rylan Politika took the loss in game one, allowing five runs, four earned, on five hits and four walks with four strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings.
Down 5-0, Wilder clawed two runs back in the top of the fourth when Flodstrom singled and eventually scored on a passed ball, and Politika followed with an RBI single.
Wilder’s attempt at a ninth-inning rally came up short despite RBI doubles from Angevine and Brayden White of Sequim.
Wilder will play today against Crush Green and Anacortes at Anacortes.
