Petaluma hands Liberty first loss in Legion regional

Liberty’s American Legion baseball team fell behind early, then gave up nine runs in the eighth inning Saturday as Petaluma (Calif.) routed the Patriots 18-4 in the American Legion Western Regional in Surprise, Ariz.

Liberty (31-4) dropped to 2-1 in the tournament, and plays League City (Texas) at 4 p.m. Sunday in an elimination game. Petaluma plays Tucson (Ariz.) at 7 p.m.

“We just had a 25-game winning streak snapped,” Liberty coach Mike Eshragh said. “The score wasn’t very indicative of what the game was like. These kids need to have a short-term memory. They need to bounce back and get fired up, because we’re not out of it.”

Petaluma used a five-run second inning to take a 7-0 lead, before Liberty rallied and appeared ready to make it a game. The Patriots scored two runs in the third on an RBI groundout by Jesse Keiser, and an RBI single by Michael Vargas.

Liberty plated two more runs in the fourth to cut the lead to 8-4. Ethan Ibarra reached on an error to start the inning and came around to score on a sacrifice fly by Preston Pavlica. Keiser then singled home Griffin Kelly to make it 8-4.

But Petaluma added a run in the sixth, and exploded for nine runs in the eighth to pull away. Chase Stafford’s three-run double to right field highlighted the big inning, and Petaluma had seven hits in the frame.

Liberty was unable to score in the bottom of the inning, and the game ended because of the 10-run rule.

Blake Patrick was 4-for-6 with two triples and two RBIs to lead Petaluma’s 22-hit attack. Robert Busse was 3-for-6 with four RBIs, and Stafford and Charles Parnow each added three hits for Petaluma.

“We knew coming in that we had to hit,” said Eshragh, whose team managed just five singles. “We knew we were going to be facing a real good team. It was just one of those things. We have the arms to compete, but they hit us pretty hard early in the game and we played catch-up most of the game.”

Liberty has just 12 players on its roster, and Eshragh said he was unsure who would pitch Sunday after using three arms against Petaluma.

“It’s pretty much all hands on deck,” Eshragh said. “Our goal is not to just get by tomorrow, our goal is to win this. But we do have to take it one game at a time.”