The Northwest Christian baseball team dropped its second straight game, falling to Crosspoint Christian 8-4 Monday at the Regional Athletic Complex.
The Wolverines gave up five runs in the sixth inning after trailing 3-0 through five, and their comeback efforts, while valiant, came up short.
Marshall Guyer started for the Wolverines, putting up a scoreless frame in the first before handing the ball off to Parker Cox in the second. After a scoreless second inning, Crosspoint Christian rallied with three straight two-out singles to score the game’s first run.
Meanwhile, Crosspoint Christian pitcher Flint Howard was dealing on the bump. At one point, he struck out six Wolverines in a row and finished with 13 in 5.1 innings, allowing just one hit. He gave himself a bigger lead with an RBI double in the fifth before striking out the side in the bottom of the fifth.
Cox ran into trouble in the sixth inning. The first two Wildcats reached base on a walk and an error, and a single loaded the bases with one out. Another error scored a run, then a hit batter brought another run home. A passed ball made it 6-0 before Keegan Peifer’s two-run single gave the Wildcats an 8-0 lead.
Bennett Hall put Northwest Christian on the board in the bottom of the sixth with a two-out, two-run single, and Jadon Dillingham tacked on a single of his own in the seventh to score a run. Facing the final out, Luke Nickel and Cox both singled, with the latter scoring the former. Guyer reached on an error to bring the tying run to the plate, but Jack Vahey struck out swinging.
“Tough loss. Parker had a tough game last week on the mound, and I was really proud of how he bounced back today,” Northwest Christian head coach Jordan Potis said. “He threw the ball really well. The defense made some costly errors that led to runs, but I was proud of how we kept fighting until the end.”
Cox struck out seven batters, walked three and gave up eight runs on nine hits across six innings.
Northwest Christian (3-2, 1-2 Sea-Tac League) gets another crack at Crosspoint Christian (4-0, 1-0 Sea-Tac League) Tuesday night at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds.
