Decatur ended its baseball season with a 17-1 loss to Puyallup, last year's 4A state runner up in boys high school competition.

The Gators ended the season at 4-12 with Friday's loss while the Vikings won the South Puget Sound League South Division with a 15-1 mark.

"Puyallup has a good team. They are sure to be in contention (for a state title) again this season, too," said Decatur head coach Maury Kincannon.

But what about the Gators' season as we quickly skirt the undressing done by the Vikings in five innings of work (WIAA mercy rule) that included a 7-0 score after the first inning and just kept getting added onto.

The Gators' lone run in the bottom of the second came on opening walks to Gavin Cuddie and Tyler Finneseth and the latter scored on a Clark Colvin RBI single, making the score, 8-1, at the time.

This season started out tough for the Gators, with no help from injury as they lost a key player only one game into the season.

"We lost our senior captain, Sam Bingaman," said Kincannon, adding, "He was out here even though he couldn't play, cheering players on and being a true teammate."

The Gators also lost another player shortly following Bingaman's unwelcome exit, the third game in against Thomas Jefferson, a non-league game.

"We lost Christian Meister," said Kincannon. "Labrum (shoulder joint muscle) problems. We were expecting big things."

In that game versus their crosstown rival, Meister pitched well, limiting the traditionally strong Raiders to one run in his three innings pitched.

Colvin was the recipient, to note, of Bingamon's departure. He was cut at the end of tryouts but...

"I was cut at the beginning but a guy broke his arm so I was brought back," said Colvin.

"He helped us in center field when Sam went down," said Kincannon.

Colvin is a senior, so this was his last game and he was the only offensive catalyst for scoring runners in this game for his team, albeit being one run it was still one run and that is a lot better than no runs.

"That was one highlight," said Colvin. "I didn't want to go 0-for-4 in my last game played in high school."

Colvin liked how this team he played on could be down eight runs at one time and still be working the count getting walks (Cuddie and Finneseth) there in second leading to a run. And, then again, down 12-1 in the bottom of the fourth, the Gators got runners on first, second, third, and Colvin was up again, trying to cut a far, far away game a little closer, 11 runs down to seven runs down if Colvin grand slammed it instead of struck out.

"I was waiting for something better," said Colvin, who was going up against one of Puyallup's better players, pitching on this day for the Viks and playing catcher when not pitching. He was some of the Division-1 talent out there for last year's second place 4A team and fifth place the year before that.

"They have three D-1 guys on there team," said Colvin, who himself will try and walk on where he will attend school next year at Eastern Washington University.

"Gonna try," said Colvin, who ran well as a Gators running back this past fall, a muscly 5-5 and 200 pound type runner.

The Gators won a couple games following a slow 0-6 start, and were playing in a game against Rogers their second time through the SPSL South schedule and were trying to do better than the 12-2 loss the first time around against the Rams.

And they did do better playing against the Rams, who would be the season-ending second place team with a 13-3 record in the SPSL South.

"We had them up, 5-1, in the seventh inning," said Kincannon. "We need three more outs to win it and Rogers won it, 9-5. The kids lost a few close games this season."

So, doing the math, Rogers scored eight runs to rally in the bottom of the seventh. Ouch. But an expected kind of pain if a certain reality is put into the equation.

"That shows a young team," said Kincannon, whose team graduated 12 seniors from last year's team. "Tough way to lose. We would have been right in the hunt if we won that game and it would have given us momentum."

The team is young, especially at the weighted top of this sport baseball where pitching unarguably is what teams want the most of, from Little League on up to the Major Leagues.

"Zach Jacobs is our ace pitcher and he will be a senior next year," said Kincannon.

Kincannon mentioned guys this season that won't be back, like Colvin.

Dominic Samuels and Nelson Adkisson, were a couple mentioned.

"They competed every single inning. They are quality young men," said Kincannon.

Colvin spoke of Kincannon and his talking to the players during the season in a friendly way and including this game where the team spent a good 10 minutes just talking away as Puyallup's coach, Marc Weise, had his guys running lines, on the other side opposite their final talk.

"Coach was telling us he's still here for us more than just as baseball players," said Colvin. "It was fun playing with this group of guys."