The 1999 Tri-County South Babe Ruth season managed to begin under some rather wet, cool and cloudy skies this week.

In local action last week, English River Black and English River Gold each claimed victories.

The Black team defeated the Washington Cardinals 5-3 at Washington Sunday.

Washington scored three times in the bottom of the third inning, but the Black squad managed to rally in their half of the fourth. Tad TeBockhorst led off the inning with a single and took second on a wild pitch. Brent Yotty’s single put runners on the corner and the two each scored on a single by Brandon TeBockhorst. Shane Miller tied the game one batter later with a single, scoring TeBockhorst.

The sixth inning put the Black team ahead for good. Brandon TeBockhorst doubled home Yotty for his third RBI of the game and Luke Johnson capped the scoring with a single and later scored in the top of the seventh.

Washington rallied in their half of the seventh, but the Black defense turned the home team away for the win. Yotty and Tony Kempf split up the pitching duties allowing three runs and 11 hits over seven innings while striking out six and walking only three.

TeBockhorst and Yotty each led the offense with two hits, while Johnson, Miller and Joel Fry also added singles.

English River Gold opened up with an 11-4 win over English River Red in their opener Saturday at Wellman. Nick Luke was the star of the game for the Gold team, pitching seven innings, giving up no earned runs and striking out 13 hitters.

Luke, David Blum and Kenton Miller all had two hits for the Gold team as Blum scored three times and Miller scored four times and Luke doubled and tripled. Corey Clark and Gabe Miller also had hits for the Gold team.

Red’s pitching triumvirate of Tyler Grout, Wyatt McCain and Kyle Ihrig managed to keep the game only 3-0 until the sixth inning. From that point on, the Gold team scored four runs in the final two innings each to put the game away.

Mark Skaden and Heath Frieden each had a hit for the Red team, while Ihrig scored two runs.

The Blue team suffered a 19-8 loss to the Washington Marlins Monday night at Kalona.

Justin Swartzendruber’s three-run triple was a highlight for the Blue offense. The Marlins opened up a 9-3 lead but Blue trimmed the margin to 9-8 before the Marlins scored the final 10 runs of the game.

Due to the rain last week, Riverside has yet to get a full league game in and will take on English River Blue at Kalona at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in their season opener