They ran out of rallies.

After a run in the District 11 Little League loser’s bracket to win the district title, the South Whidbey All-Stars struggled hitting against two Eastern Washington teams. The 11- and 12-year-old All-Stars lost 10-0 to Spokane South and 11-1 to Pasco in the state tournament.

“It was a fun run,” said South Whidbey manager Eddie Sergeant.

“We just ran into a couple of bandsaws those two games,” he said.

The first game was decided in four innings due to the 10-run mercy rule. South Whidbey batters struggled to get on base with only four hits on Saturday.

“The bats were just quiet,” Sergeant said.

Charlie Patterson, who pitched South Whidbey into the state tournament during the district run, struggled against Spokane South.

Patterson returned from an arm injury to pitch a shutout in the district championship, and Sergeant said Patterson could not do anything different to change the outcome of the first game.

“The competition is the best of the best,” Sergeant said.

South Whidbey had a day to rest Sunday. Sergeant said some families went south from Vancouver to Portland for the day. It was a welcome break from what seemed like seven-days-a-week baseball, Sergeant said.

The downtime didn’t help, though.

With South Whidbey’s number two pitcher, Will Simms, on the mound, they took an early lead.

In the second inning, Josiah Sergeant hit a single and advanced to third base on two pitches that went past the catcher, before he was thrown out at home plate. Parker Buchanan hit a single and advanced to second base on a steal. Max Divina singled to put runners on the corners. Hunter Newman hit a sacrifice fly to left field which allowed Buchanan to tag at third base and score.

That was South Whidbey’s only run in two games at the Little League state tournament.

“Sometimes you get hits in; sometimes you don’t,” Josiah Sergeant said.

Trailing 1-0 in the third inning, Pasco batters found the right stroke. Pasco scored three runs in the third inning. The game was still competitive, until the next inning.

“We were holding them and playing them really well into the third or fourth inning,” Simms said. “Then they just kept getting hits and they scored a bunch of runs.”

Pasco scored seven runs in the fourth — five came on two home runs. South Whidbey pulled Simms and put in Connor Antich and Trent Piehler to pitch. The damage was done, though.

“They just hit the ball better than we did,” Eddie Sergeant said. “They had some kids that were pretty good size.”

The boys were upset after their elimination. Sergeant said a few hours after the game, they were in better spirits.

“Like I told them after the game, ‘Don’t let it dampen what you did this season,’” Sergeant said.

The Little Leaguers headed home from Vancouver Tuesday morning. The long road home wouldn’t be filled with regret, especially for Sergeant, who finished his first stint as a Little League manager.

“It’s not every year that you get to work with the talent that we worked with,” he said.

He credited his coaches Bill Patterson and Craig Antich for developing the majority of his team the past several years.

“This is really the culmination of all their years of hard work,” Sergeant said. “I couldn’t have done this without their expertise.”

Simms said the team left the tournament with an important take-away.

“We got to learn a little more about what we should work on and what we need to do,” he said, adding hitting and mental toughness as key areas of improvement.