ShawneeDispatch.com

Kansas City, Mo. — In many respects, the Mill Valley baseball team may have played its best five innings of baseball of the summer on Saturday in the Buck O'Neil Negro Leagues Baseball Classic.

For five innings the Jaguars were nearly flawless in all phases of the game. They played solid defense and made all of the routine plays. Pitcher John Theis hit his spots and kept opposing batters off balance. The Jags battled through long counts, earned walks, knocked the ball around and worked the base paths with aggression.

Their lone weak spot was bringing runners home once they reached base. The shortcoming ultimately proved to be their downfall in an 8-2 loss to the Maurer Green Athletics in the final game of pool play at Clark-Ketterman Athletic Complex.

Maurer was the pool champion with a 3-0 record and advanced to the tournament semifinals. Mill Valley ended the tournament with a 1-2 record, including a 5-0 victory over Memphis RBI at Cleveland Park and an 11-0 loss to the Kansas City White Sox at Rockhurst University. Both games were Friday.

"You never like to lose, and I don't like moral victories," Mill Valley coach Jeff Strickland said. "Honestly, with this team (Maurer Green), I think talent-wise we were very comparable to them today, and to me that's a position where you hope to win a game like that."

For most of the game Mill Valley had Maurer - the pool's only unbeaten team - on the ropes. Theis had plenty to do with it. He allowed just one hit through the first four innings, and that base runner was caught stealing moments later when catcher Bennett Ratzloff threw him out at second.

The Jaguars' offense backed up Theis with a run in the second inning and another in the third. Jake Messner provided the first run when he walked, advanced to second on an error and scored on Luke Jenkins' single to right field. The second run came after Ratzloff reached base on an error in the third inning. Pinch runner Austin King scored on a single by Josh Van Holland.

Mill Valley led 2-0 after five innings, but the damage could have been much worse. They stranded the bases loaded in the first, fourth and fifth innings. Strickland attributed his team's inability to produce runs in those situations to its youth.

"(It comes down to) kids getting used to being in that position," he said. "We've got a lot of kids that weren't put in that position during the school year, and it's something new to them. It's two-fold, being physically able to do it and then mentally having the right approach to get it done. We're not there yet."

Theis wore down in the sixth inning and allowed three hits and a walk. Maurer plated three runs in the inning. Mill Valley tried to rally in the bottom of the inning. Ratzloff was hit by a pitch and Curtis Peavler reached base on an error. Neither scored, however. Maurer forced Theis from the game in the seventh inning. It used four hits, two walks and a hit batter to score five more runs in the seventh.

In 6 1/3 innings, Theis allowed just five hits and had four walks while striking out seven.

"Doesn't he look good?" Strickland said of Theis, the Jaguars' ace this summer.

Strickland said Saturday's performance was typical of how his team has played during the past few weeks. He has seen a lot of progress, but the Jags haven't quite put a full game together.

"The last two weeks we've been pretty good in three-, four- and five-inning stretches," he said. "Very similar to that, and then it kind of falls apart."

Against Memphis, Montana Kiler struck out nine and allowed just three hits in the complete game shutout.

The Jaguars were no-hit by the White Sox later in the day.

Mill Valley was back in action Tuesday night in the Johnson County 3&2 Summer League. The Jaguars' next tournament will be the high school state tournament July 11-13 at 3&2.