South Highline Americans' Lukas Kelly put on a good show for the 9-10 winner's bracket semi-final baseball all-star game that his team lost, 9-3, in the Washington State District 7 tournament at Bar S Playfield in West Seattle Wednesday.

But to spin a quote from the most recent version of the many remakes of the flick, King Kong, it wasn't Kelly's pitching that killed the beast of success for SHA, it was errors, and luck.

The 9-year-old Kelly went through the first six batters of West Seattle with relative ease. No, make that complete ease. He struck out the side in the first before he struck out the first batter in the second, induced the second into a pop-up, and the third batter swung and missed at a third strike.

At first, Kelly was a young man of few words.

You like playing baseball against the many older kids?

"Yeah," he said.

You think that was a pretty good team?

"Yeah," he said.

You struck out five of six batters in the first two innings?

"Yeah, I didn't think I could do that," said Kelly.

What does that tell you?

"I know I can handle the 10 year olds," he said.

The West Seattle team was pretty good, but so was Kelly, not to mention his teammates like Ryan Gifford, who fielded a hot-chopped bouncer with aplomb, bringing down his mitt to his hip to watch the ball zip in before he threw calmly to first base.

So Kelly had good defense behind him in the beginning. And SHA had a chance to take a lead with the score 0-0 heading into the bottom of the second. It was Jacob Gardner leading off the inning with a triple.

Next, Daniel Johnston drew a walk. So, with runners at first and second base, the table was set for some next batters to do some serious damage. But the next two batters struck out and then a walk loaded the bases with two outs. And that was it. They stayed loaded, because the next batter struck out.

Then came the third inning and that was when the damage started. A leadoff single up the middle and a stolen base started things off for West Seattle, but then Kelly got a strikeout.

Then a nice poke -- it looked to be anyway -- over Gifford's head was caught on the run over the shoulder by the sweet-gloving second baseman. But an RBI looped into center field came next to make it 1-0, West Seattle. It became 2-0 West Seattle an at-bat batter later on a fielding error in the infield. Then, a lucky, or call it good skilled hitting, came as a West Seattle batter reached out and was able to poke the ball over Gifford's head, again, into center field. That scored two, and, it was 4-0 for West Seattle. The next batter hit the ball back to Kelly, who fielded it and threw to first base.

A lot of damage was done, but SHA came back in the bottom of the third to make it 4-3 when Marques Carlson and Havlicek led off the inning with singles back-to-back ahead of a strikeout. But then a walk loaded the bases. And then another walk forced in Carlson to make it a 4-1 ballgame. Then Kelly helped his own cause by drawing a walk to force in Havlicek and make it a 4-2 score. Another wild pitch later and Gardner took home to make it 4-3. The next batter struck out and West Seattle added to its lead in the top of four with a single and a RBI single to left field that became a double when the ball rolled under the charging left fielder's glove. Then an error in the infield meant another run in for West Seattle and it was 6-3 after the fourth.

West Seattle added some insurance runs after that, with an inside the park home run for their cause by Buick MacNamara in the fifth top half to make it 7-3. And then in the top of the sixth, some more runs came for West Seattle off a close play at first where the runner was called safe followed by a double, and back-to-back singles both for an RBI each.

"They had two good pitchers," said Kelly of West Seattle.

West Seattle did have two good pitchers and SHA chased one of them from the game with their good eyes to get bases on balls in the third.

Now it's a rough road for SHA, though. They must now have won five in a row to have got to last Monday's championship.

Well, if you ask Kelly anyway if he's going to come back and do it, he has one word for you.

"Yeah," he said.