By Doug Petrowski

After losing six in a row, and eight in their last nine, the Mountlake Terrace baseball team was looking for change; Coach Andrew Watters supplied the team with a few, inserting freshman Drew Serres into the shortstop position and putting senior Quintin Barnard in center field. The moves paid off, as the Hawks scored plenty of runs early and showed some strong defense throughout in a 7-3 victory over the Meadowdale Mavericks on Tuesday at Meadowdale High School.

The win lifted the Hawks’ record to 3-7 in Wesco league play, 5-8 overall. The Mavericks dipped to 6-3 in the league, 7-5 overall. The teams continue their three-game series on Wednesday with a 4 p.m. match-up at Mountlake Terrace High School, a game that can be seen live, weather permitting, on the Hawk Live Sports Network on MLTnews.com. Game three in the series is set for Friday.

“We made a couple of adjustments defensively,” Watters explained of Tuesday’s game. “Drew played shortstop and he had a great game defensively today. He had a couple great plays.” And as for Barnard’s play in the outfield, Watters answered, “(He) played center field today for the first time in his career actually, and he did a solid job.”

Watters was also pleased with Terrace pitching as starter Daniel Theis gave up three runs on just four hits, struck out three and walked two in five innings. Jason Shevenko came on to pitch the final two innings and earn the save for the Hawks.

“We played well, and Dan pitched really well, and Jason did a good job closing. We played good defense today. It was a good day for us,” Watters said. “We’re on the charge, trying to get our playoff spot. This is a big series, so it was just nice to see our team play tough today and overcome this tough streak.”

Meadowdale starter Matt Hill gave up five runs off of seven hits in the second inning. After Theis and Jordan Yoshida led the inning off with back-to-back singles, Chase Perez pounded an RBI double to deep right field, scoring Theis. Lucas Pope knocked in Yoshida before being caught in a rundown between first and second base. Barnard jumped on board with an RBI double of his own later in the inning following one of the most unusual home runs seen in awhile; Hawk Jason Shevenko scored an inside-the-park home run after the Meadowdale left fielder got stuck underneath the chain link outfield fence chasing down a Shevenko drive.

After taking the 5-0 lead, Meadowdale scored three in their half of the fifth inning, the big blow being a two-out double off the bat of senior Tyler McGuire. But the Hawks came right back with two runs off of a bunt single, a hit-by-a-pitch batter and three walks in the top of the sixth to put the game out of reach.

Mountlake Terrace Hawks     0 5 0  0 0 2  0  —  7  8  0

Meadowdale Mavericks     0 0 0  0 3 0  0  —  3  7  3

Winning pitcher:  Daniel Theis

Losing pitcher:  Matt Hill