Sporadic play haunted the Oak Harbor Babe Ruth baseball team as it opened the Lynden Memorial Weekend Tournament with a pair of close loses Saturday, May 25.

The Bellingham Angles defeated Oak Harbor 7-4 in the opener, then the Bayou Bulls of Mill Creek topped Oak Harbor 7-5 in the second game.

Oak Harbor struggled to generate offense, getting only five hits and striking out 13 times against the Angels. However, Oak Harbor stayed within striking distance  most of the game.

The Angles scored in the first inning on a double and error. Oak Harbor countered in the second on singles by Paul Spence and Dominic Stevens.

Bellingham mixed a walk, sacrifice, single and fielder’s choice to score in the third. In the fourth, the Angels used a double, hit batter, passed ball and fielder’s choice to score two.

Bellingham appeared to put the game away with a three-run sixth thanks to two hits, two walks and an error.

But Oak Harbor wouldn’t go away and put together a three-run rally of its own. Two errors, a double by Dylan Bailey and a single by Robert Herring plated three runs for Oak Harbor.

The game ended after six innings because of the tournament time-limit rule.

In the second game, both teams scored a run in the first. The Bulls scored on a walk and two singles. For Oak Harbor, Stevens tripled and scored on Bailey’s ground out.

The Bulls scored once in the second and twice in the third to go up 4-1.

Oak Harbor bounced back to take a 5-4 lead with a four-run third.  Austin Hauter and Trent Benson walked to start the big inning. Chris Levy singled to score Hauter. After two outs, including a pickoff, Bailey walked and Herring was hit by a pitch to score the second run. Spence’s two-run double finished the scoring.

From there the Bulls would score three more runs (two in the fourth and one in the seven), and Oak Harbor would get shut out and fail to register another hit.

For the game, Oak Harbor walked seven Bulls and committed three errors, and five of the Bulls’ seven runs came as a result.

Not all was sloppy for the Oak Harbor defense. Coach Bill Young noted the strong defensive play of Dillan Murphy, Hauter, Stevens, Herring and Jordan Davenport.