MARYSVILLE — The Marysville 9-10-year-old All-Stars received the message loud and clear — come to play or stay home.

The South Everett All-Stars made that declaration in form of a 17-2 victory over Marysville, Saturday, July 2, in the first round of the District 1 All-Star tournament at Cedar Field.

“I told my guys that there’s a difference between losing and being beat,” Marysville coach John Natterstad said. “There’s no doubt about it, we were beat. When you lose you have at least some control of the things you need to do. Being beat means that you need to be a better team in almost all aspects of the game. Tonight we were beat. It was a wake-up call.”

Sam Barnes belted a double to left field in the first inning, scoring Nich Kemp from first base after reaching base on a walk. Marysville’s Wyatt Yarbrough caught a Zach Gil pop-up which stranded Barnes at third. South Everett Pitcher Michael Pratt struck out three of four Marysville batters to end the first inning, leading 1-0.

“Their starting pitcher did a good job keeping our guys off guard,” Natterstad said. “He threw some good pitches. We just couldn’t connect.”

Gage Davis led off the second inning with a double down the third-base line. Pratt followed with an infield single. Bryce Cote’s successful bunt advanced the runners and loaded the bases with no outs. Jayden Johnson followed Cote with a three-run triple to right field, giving South Everett a 4-0 lead.

Marysville’s only sign of life came at the hands of South Everett. Pratt walked Marysville’s first three batters to load the bases. He struck out the next two batters, but he went on to walk two more batters which scored Yarbrough and Cayden Natterstad to cut Marysville’s deficit in half.

“Their pitchers were all over the place,” John Natterstad said. “But then they started throwing strikes when they had to and that got to us.”

South Everett all but slammed the door on Marysville in the third inning. With one out, Gil, who hit a single up the middle, scored off a Davis double to right field. Davis reached third base following walks to Pratt and Brock Gillis. Billy Burgess followed with a base-clearing triple to deep center field, giving South Everett an 8-2 lead. With runners on first and third, Carson Metcalfe hit a two-run double to extend South Everett’s lead to 10-2. Marysville stranded four batters over the next two innings and South Everett added seven more runs to preserve the victory.

“That is a really good team and they hit the ball exceptionally,” Natterstad said. “Our pitching was good at times, but we just have to get our pitches down into the strike zone better, but they were hitting them, too.”

Marysville plays Mukilteo in a loser-out game, beginning at 5 p.m., Wednesday, July 6, at Cedar Field.