If second place was up for grabs in District 5-A, it is no longer.
Silverdale Baptist ended any argument Tuesday, nailing down the league's runner-up spot behind Boyd-Buchanan with an easier-than-expected 10-0 five-inning victory over visiting Grace Academy.
The Seahawks put up 10 runs in four at-bats, banging out nine hits and combining those with a pair of Golden Eagle errors, five free passes and a hit batsman.
"We like our pitching and we like our defense. It's been a matter of the offense clicking," coach Jonathan Adcock said. "The last few games the offense has come together so maybe we can make a little noise in the district and get into the region."
District 5-A coaches meet today to set their district schedule, but Silverdale is assured of being on the opposite half of the winners-bracket from Boyd-Buchanan and already in the double-elimination portion of the tournament. Grace, meanwhile, will host Copper Basin in a play-in game either Thursday or Friday.
It is a situation the Eagles could have avoided, Grace coach Jeff Reese observed after his club suffered its fourth consecutive loss. They fell last Friday to Arts & Sciences and dropped a one-run game to Boyd before the back-to-back losses to Silverdale.
"We were in a position to finish second and we have given it away," he said, trying to keep the disappointment from showing. "We're trying too hard to get the one big hit rather than putting a bunch of hits together. Between nerves and being the guy to get the big hit to get everybody going, we're getting outside of our (offensive) approach."
He has a couple of days at most to fix it or Grace Academy baseball for 2015 will be over.
"We laid an egg like this earlier in the year didn't have a single good at-bat till the seventh inning," he recalled. "Then we turned around the next night and beat a good team. We just have to get back to what we do rather than worrying about the opponent."
Silverdale pitchers Josiah Green and Nathan Keylon were worrisome for the Eagles. They combined for a three-hitter, Green striking out five and allowing just three baserunners in four innings. His only walk was erased when the runner was gunned down by battery mate Blake Howard.
"Josiah's got that changeup that can run in on a right-hander and it saws them off," Adcock said. "It looks so fat coming up there and then it breaks in on their hands at the last minute. Tonight, though, fastball, curveball, changeup it looked like he had all of them working and he's tough when that's the case."
The Seahawks scored six second-inning runs on back-to-back RBIs by Howard and Porter and then by Jordan Delasmitt and Collin Daniel, but it was a bases-loaded, two-out double by Alex Porter in the bottom of the fourth that put the game out of reach.
"He's been hitting better," Adcock said. "That was a big two-out hit, and we haven't had many of those, but the hitting continues to improve."
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.