By David Bashore

Herald sports editor

Hermiston Jake Norling’s one-out groundball allowed Ryan Howard to scamper home with the winning run to hand Tualatin Hills a 9-8 win over the Pendleton Nationals in a compelling state Babe Ruth championship game Tuesday.

After plating six runs in the first inning against Pendleton starter Jeff Eickstaedt, Tualatin Hills gave up four runs in both the second and fourth innings to fall behind, only to score three unanswered to wrest the title away from Pendleton.

Eickstaedt was chased after retiring just two batters, making way for reliever Shawn Simpson, who threw five and a third sparkling innings but it was not quite enough.

“It was really a coin-toss between Jeff and Shawn as to who was going to start,” Pendleton coach Rich Lebsock said. “This team has proven that they’re never out of a game, and we just kept chipping away at it.”

After sending 12 batters to the plate in the first inning and scoring six times highlighted by a towering two-run double by shortstop Miles Richard Tualatin Hills looked like they had the game won after just one frame.

Team skipper Chris Cronk knew that there was a lot of game left to play, and the four-run Pendleton fight-back in the second inning highlighted that.

Still, Cronk thought that the ease with which his club had surged into the lead played a factor in allowing Pendleton off the ropes.

“We came out hitting the ball well, and I think we were surprised how easy it was coming,” Cronk said. “I told the kids we had a long way to go, but I think (the offensive outburst) caused us to make some mistakes and let (Pendleton) back in the game.”

After the four runs in the second inning, it appeared order was restored until Pendleton broke through for another quartet in the top half of the fourth, chasing Tualatin Hills ace Jeremy Cronk.

In came the shortstop Richard to try and settle things down, and he did exactly that by not allowing a single runner across the plate to keep his team in it.

“I knew it was important to keep them off the board,” Richard said. “Usually I’m not nervous, but I was pretty nervous out there. But we did it.”

Two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning squared the see-saw game at 8-8 and spelled the end of the night for Simpson.

After Richard escaped a bases-loaded jam to keep the scores level heading into the home half of the seventh, the game’s ebb-and-flow pendulum made one final swing.

Howard doubled to left field with one out, then capitalized on a vital Pendleton mistake to set the stage for the winning sequence.

Chris Cronk admitted the steal sign was on to try to get him to third base, but a pick-off move thwarted the attempt until the ball skittered away from the fielders and allowed Howard to get to within 90 feet of a championship.

Norling’s groundout forced Howard to retreat back to third, but only long enough to see the throw go across the diamond.

After its release toward first base, Howard raced home and slid in just ahead of the tag, setting off a race amongst his teammates to see who’d be the first out of the dugout to meet and mob him, and celebrate their hard-earned championship.

“I couldn’t do anything (intially to react); I was in awe for a moment,” Chris Cronk said even while the celebration continued behind him. “Then as the players came by I realized we’d won it.”

Lebsock bemoaned the bookend runs Tualatin Hills put up, but was quick to note the fact that his team dominated the middle innings, only to find themselves painfully unlucky in the end.

“We gave everything we had in this tournament,” Lebsock said. “The kids have nothing to be ashamed of.”

By winning the North Oregon championship, Tualatin Hills advances to the Northwest Regional tournament beginning Tuesday in Meridian, Idaho.

David Bashore can be reached at dbashore@hermistonherald.com.