CROTHERSVILLE

A little rain couldn’t stop the Crothersville baseball team from getting on the field, but West Washington prevented the Tigers from leaving with a win.

The Tigers fell to the Senators 17-1 in six innings on Wednesday afternoon.

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After trailing 4-0 in 2½ innings, the Tigers scored their first run of the season.

Freshman Jonathan Ritz made it to home, from third base, on a Senators error at short stop.

The Senators added a run in the fourth inning before scoring five in the fifth while holding the Tigers scoreless.

While they needed just one run and three Tigers outs to come away with a run-rule victory, the Senators tacked-on seven scores in the top of the sixth to seal a victory.

The Tigers’ Codi MacDonald, Clayton Byrd and Cory Needler each came up with hits on the afternoon.

Prior to their game with the Senators, the Tigers had just one hit in three games.

Tigers coach Jared Richey felt that his team took better cuts at the plate against the Senators.

“We’re doing better than we were offensively,” Richey said. “We’re seeing a lot more live pitching outside of games. We found that to be one of our weaknesses early, so in practices there are a lot more live situations.”

MacDonald was the losing pitcher for the Tigers with five strikeouts, nine hits, seven walks and 10 runs in four and two-thirds innings.

Josh Redwine pitched the rest of the game putting up two strikeouts, six hits, one walk and seven runs.

“(MacDonald) did good, I’m proud of what he did on the mound,” Richey said. “He started throwing a lot of pitches, so I had to pull him off.”

Moving forward, Richey said he wants to see his team improve on mental toughness and have some grit.

“We get down on ourselves kind of quick. We’re working on shaking that off and getting back into the games.

“Determination, 100 percent. We need to stay in the game — the whole game. That’s what we’re focusing on. The mental aspect has very much been the toughest part.”

Today, the Tigers (0-4) will host Trinity Lutheran (2-4).