Newport gets past Mount Si with late runs

NORTH BEND – A.J. Block struck out eight in a complete game, Todd Reese delivered the go-ahead RBI in the seventh inning and Newport captured a 5-3 road win over Mount Si on Friday.

Newport improves to 3-1 and 2-0 in KingCo, while Mount Si falls to 2-3 and 0-2 in league play with its third straight loss.

Block baffles Wildcats

Block couples his fastball with a curveball and cutter. Admittedly, though, the cutter doesn’t always move the way he envisions. It might not have been perfect Friday, but the pitch had enough movement to keep Mount Si batters off balance.

Aside from small mistakes in the third and sixth, Block breezed through the Wildcats lineup, needing 85 pitches to get through the seven innings. The lanky left-hander’s first mistake came when he left a pitch up to Mason Marenco, who tripled in two runs. He also allowed a sixth-inning solo home run to Justin Luntz.

Both run-scoring hits tied the game, but each time the junior responded with a shutdown inning.

“He’s got a high ceiling and he came out today and showed that,” Newport coach Brad Files said. “He really bowed his neck out there and proved to us, and proved to everybody, that he belongs. He’s going to be a good one for sure.”

After allowing the two-run triple to Marenco in the third, which tied the game, 2-2, Block retired nine straight. During that span, Newport took a 3-2 lead. The streak was snapped when Luntz cleared the right-field wall with a home run, but Block, after walking the next batter, struck out four of the final five he faced to end the game.

Reese comes through

With the score tied 3-3 in the seventh, Reese found himself at the plate with two on and one out. The senior third baseman smoked a 3-1 pitch into left field to score Jace Goforth from second.

“I was looking for something good to hit,” said Reese, who got a fastball up and over the plate. “It wouldn’t have mattered if wasn’t for my two guys ahead of me getting on base.”

Vinny Guinasso followed with an RBI single to pad the Newport lead.

Reese had given Newport a 2-0 lead in the first with a two-run double to left-center field.

Quotable

Reese on the KingCo win: “It feels good. We battled with them. Last couple games we’ve kind of been rolling, so it was good to get a tight game in here. It shows that we can compete and we won’t fold when it gets tough.”