Washington gets ready to face Solon for first postseason game

The Washington Demons baseball couldn?t pull off the win against Solon Tuesday evening.

The game was called after five innings with a final score of 11 to 1.

?We didn?t play our best,? said senior Michael Ellingson, who plays shortstop. ?I think we can all agree on that. We started coming back at the end of the game and I think we just didn?t have the right flow to the game.?

Washington senior Cole Embree, who plays second base for the Demons, agreed with Ellingson.

?Hopefully pitching will be a little better and hopefully we can slow down their bats a little bit since they were a pretty good hitting team,? Embree said.

Now they know what to expect when they face Solon again Friday night, Ellingson said.

?I think we?ll still go into it like a normal game and compete the best we can,? Ellingson added.

Washington head coach Nathan Miller said the team has focused on a couple of things in practice this week.

?We?ll focus on more team defensive things today,? Miller said. ?Yesterday, [Wednesday], it was about really getting back to the basics. We covered a lot of basic fundamentals and just worked through [it]. We concentrated a lot on hitting yesterday because we have not swung the bats entirely great the last four games.?

They only had two hits against Oskalooska and four hits against Center Point-Urbana, Miller added.

Washington will face Solon again Friday night for its first regional game. Miller said the team doesn?t need to necessarily improve things.

?We just need to make plays,? Miller said, ?you know, that was the whole thing. We had two critical errors in the first inning on ground balls that if we field and make the throw we?re out of the inning and there?s no damage and it?s 0 to 0.?

There was also a base run mistake in the top of the first inning.

?That ended the inning at third base,? Miller said. ?We had our five-hole hitter Ryan Loy that was up with a 3 - 1 count, 2 - 1 count and we needed to be able to let him try to swing it. Not that we would have scored, but you never want to make the third out at third base and end the inning.?

If you took those three errors away, the game would have gone differently, Miller added.

?And I really believe the final score would not have been the same as it was,? he said.

He is looking forward to the challenge of facing Solon again.

?This is postseason,? Miller said. ?This is what we?ve been playing for. Conference titles are great, a very good motivator, but this is where everybody set out to be at the beginning of the season. Everybody wants to make a trip to the state tournament and if they get there they want to see if they can win it, so that?s our concept right now. We want to do what we can right to get there, and once we get there, to see what we can do and try winning it. Our focus right now is Solon and putting together a well-played game.?

Ellingson said he has some goals for his final postseason playing for the Demons.

?We really want to get to third round,? Ellingson said. ?We want to make it to state tournament, but our third round is played on our home field, so that would be a great way to end my career and this season. This will be my last sport in high school and I want to end it right.?

Embree echoed Ellingson?s thoughts.

?We have the potential to make a deep rise and I just hope we can come together and do it,? Embree said.

The Demons will be visiting Solon Friday evening. The game is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.