Braves whitewash Concrete; cement league lead

The La Conner High baseball team enjoyed a smooth ride to Concrete on Friday.

And ace hurler Max Miller made sure the Braves didn’t hit any bumps in the road during their brief upriver visit.

Miller earned his seventh mound win of the year with perhaps his best outing to date, a one-hit shutout, as the Braves blanked Concrete 4-0 in a key NW2B road test.

Second place Friday Harbor sported a 5-1 NW2B mark – its lone loss coming to the Braves – entering this week’s conference play.

The win over Concrete was huge for a Braves club that took a 10-4 overall ledger into Tuesday’s late action at Darrington.

Miller set the tone early. He retired the first 11 batters he faced en route to a dominant 13-strikeout performance.

The only hit Miller yielded was an infield single in the final frame.

Miller received the only run support he needed in the first inning. After Taylor Swanson and Cameron Hansen got aboard, Logan James delivered a booming two-run triple.

Miller then helped his cause by plating James with an RBI safety.

The score stood at 3-0 until the fifth, when La Conner added an insurance score.

Again, Miller played a big part.

After Hansen led off the inning with a two-bagger, Miller drove him home with his second run-producing single of the day.

“It was definitely another good week for us,” La Conner coach Jeremiah LeSourd said afterward.

The numbers bear him out.

Prior to the shutout win at Concrete, La Conner had bested both Shoreline Christian and Lummi in convincing fashion.

The Braves drubbed Shoreline 9-3 on Monday, then routed Lummi 15-3 the following afternoon.

“We were aggressive early on offense,” LeSourd said of the win at Shoreline, “and we played solid defense with runners on base.”

La Conner posted crooked numbers in the third and fifth innings and tallied lone markers in the second and fourth.

Hansen paced the victors with a single, a double, and a run driven in. Matt Semrau added a single, double, and RBI in three trips.

James had a double and drove in two runs in a couple at-bats.

As would be the case at Concrete, Miller picked up the win, deftly working out of jams the few times he was in trouble.

It was much the same story for La Conner at Lummi. The Braves scored in all but one inning, providing strong support for Hansen in his pitching debut.

“He settled in pretty quickly,” LeSourd said of the versatile Hansen.

Hansen was also backed by solid relief from Swanson and Erick Reinstra, who combined for three scoreless stanzas.

Cooper Zavala blasted a homer and a single and delivered three runs for the winners. Preston Stewart chipped in a triple, two singles, and three RBIs.

La Conner faces non-league foe Blaine today, Wednesday, before sailing to Friday Harbor for a much anticipated rematch with the Wolverines on Friday.