Five hits in the fourth inning, including a couple of the bad- bounce variety, broke a 1-1 tie and gave the South Skagit Nationals a 4-1 victory over North Whidbey in Monday’s opening round of the 11 to-12-year-old District 11 Little League All-Star tournament at Windjammer Park.

Ten teams had been entered in the district tournament but three dropped out, forcing league officials to juggle the schedule.

North Whidbey had been slated to play the Islands team in the first round, but went up against the South Sklagit squad instead.

“What makes it even stranger is if you lose in the first round, you have a day off,” North Whidbey coach Ty Young said. “Usually it’s the other way around, but now the first-round winners have to come back and play the next day. Still if you have less teams, you have to win less games to advance.”

The Nationals got on the board first in the opening inning on a one-out single and a pair of errors.

North Whidbey tied the score in the bottom of the second inning.

Kiefer Hermann lead off with an infield single and Jack Richter followed with a line single to right field moving Hermann to third.

Grant Schroeder bounced back to Nationals pitcher Andrew Roozen who threw Hermann out at the plate for the first out.

With one out, Cory Cameron’s grounder eluded Nationals shortstop Alex Fredrickson and Richter trotted across the plate with the tying run.

Unfortunately, this was the only run North Whidbey would score.

The Nationals took the lead for good in the top of the fourth inning on four-straight hits, a walk and a fielder’s choice.

“When your defense doesn’t help you out you better hit and we didn’t today,” manager Pete Richter said. “Mental errors and physical errors were what beat us.”

South Skagit scored its final run in the top of the fifth on a fielder’s choice, a wild pitch, a passed ball and a stolen base.

Jo Jo Webster had two hits for North Whidbey.