Rivalry favors the rivals: NK blanks Sparts

Poor defense put the Spartans in a hole early, en route to the 11-0 defeat. It was one of those games the Spartans will gladly forget. Robbie Stevenson gave up six runs in the first inning and the defense committed seven errors overall, as Bainbridge dropped its season opener to North Kitsap 11-0 on Monday. “I thought we were ready to play today,” Spartans coach Jayson Gore said of the home defeat. “What can you do? (Whether it’s) 1-0 or 11-0, if you don’t score runs, you don’t win the game.”

Poor defense put the Spartans in a hole early, en route to the 11-0 defeat.

It was one of those games the Spartans will gladly forget.

Robbie Stevenson gave up six runs in the first inning and the defense committed seven errors overall, as Bainbridge dropped its season opener to North Kitsap 11-0 on Monday.

“I thought we were ready to play today,” Spartans coach Jayson Gore said of the home defeat. “What can you do? (Whether it’s) 1-0 or 11-0, if you don’t score runs, you don’t win the game.”

Viking pitcher Jared Prince went four innings for the win, giving up only one hit to junior second baseman Matt Frazee and striking out 10.

He struck out the side in the second and the fourth inning.

“First game of the year and you’re seeing 90 miles an hour,” Gore said. “The kid is a legitimate top 10, top 15 draft pick.”

For their part, Spartan pitchers issued 11 walks to Viking batters.

“If we were facing someone else, you might make a game out of it, but you just can’t make seven errors and walk 11 people against North Kitsap,” Gore said. “They’re too well coached.”

The trouble started from the very first batter. Stevenson hit second baseman Travis Tobin, who stole second, and then walked leftfielder Chris Williams.

Stevenson then gave up back-to-back infield singles to Prince and catcher Marcus Curtis, who brought in Tobin and Williams to score, respectively.

Curtis advanced to third on a passed ball, and then centerfielder Jeff Camus drove in him with a sacrifice fly.

He walked first baseman Kevin Garton, got shortstop Nate Brown to pop out to Frazee at second, but gave up another RBI single to the Vikings’ Jordan Henry, another walk to rightfielder Andy Sturza, an RBI single to Tobin and a walk to Williams.

Gore then lifted him for C.J. Hall, who got Prince to ground to Spartan shortstop Zach Peach for the force of Williams at second to end the inning.

“Robbie was struggling right off the bat,” Gore said. “He hit the first guy, then gave up two singles, then the wheels just came off.”

The Vikings scored three more times in the third and the sixth.

Despite the lack of hitting and abundance of errors, Gore told his team after the game to put it out of their heads and move on.

“We’ve had really good practices and we’ve been working pretty hard,” he said. “We’ll be fine. I told ‘em our season starts Friday. Today was just a warmup.”

The Spartans play Garfield today and close out their homestand against Metro League opponent Rainier Beach on Friday. Both games are at 3:30 p.m.