CENTRAL POINT, OR – The Pepsi Bottlecaps baseball team gave up four unearned runs to defending state champion North Medford in the bottom of the first inning on Friday and never could recover as the Bottlecaps lost 5-1 for their first defeat of the Class A American Legion baseball state tournament.

Pepsi had jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning, but the Mavericks pounced on the Bottlecaps poor defensive play in the bottom half of the inning to pull ahead 4-1. North Medford added a run in the second inning to stretch the lead to 5-1.

Neither team managed much offensively from that point. Pepsi didn’t allow another hit until the seventh inning, but the Bottlecaps’ offense continued to struggle. Pepsi struck out nine times in the contest.

Up next, the Pepsi Bottlecaps will face elimination as they take on North Jackson at noon on Saturday. The winner of the game will move on to championship Sunday needing to win twice to claim the state title.

North Medford will take on La Grande at 3 p.m. in the other match-up Saturday. The Mavericks can make life easy on themselves by beating La Grande and knocking them out of the tournament.

If La Grande were to beat North Medford Saturday, there would be three one-loss teams left in the tournament. In that scenario, La Grande would face the winner of the Pepsi/North Jackson contest first on Sunday and the winner of that game would take on North Medford in the championship game.