Immediately after Spencer Best threw his final pitch of the game, a ball, Mark Morris coach Brice Richards clapped his hands loudly and began the long, slow walk to the mound.

There were two outs in the bottom of the seventh. Best was working on a no-hitter, the Monarchs clinging to a 1-0 lead with a runner on first base.

“I saw him walk out of the dugout, and I’m like, ‘No coach, no,’” Best said. “I want one more.”

But Best’s day was done. The R.A. Long runner on first base, Tanner Hulings, promptly stole second. Then Kaden Vanderwerf lined a single up the middle off Riku Kusakabe to break up the no-no and tie the score.

It all ended in a flurry — two MM throwing errors in the span of five pitches, the last one skittering past first baseman James Manthe as Vanderwerf raced home from third base to give the Lumberjacks a miraculous 2-1 walk-off win over the rival Monarchs.

“Things just weren’t going our way at first,” Vanderwerf said. “And then all of a sudden, they did.”

Best threw 105 pitches and didn’t allow a hit in 6 2/3 innings, striking out four and walking two. His opposite number, Gunnar Blix, was at least his equal, allowing zero earned runs and two hits while striking out 10 in a complete-game win.

After suffering a doubleheader sweep to Hudson’s Bay last Friday, RAL (5-4 in league, 6-8) desperately needed a win to maintain its place in the thick of the Greater St. Helens 2A League playoff chase.

The Monarchs (3-5 in league, 7-8), meanwhile, find themselves in precarious straits.

“It’s tough to lose a game like that,” Richards said. “You just tip your hat. And now we’re against the wall — we’ve got to win every game this week.”

For Best, this start couldn’t have gone more differently from his last. On April 17, he was lifted after allowing four runs in 2/3 of an inning against Woodland.

The senior had been eager to get the bad taste out of his mouth.

“Since that Woodland game, it’s been on my mind to start another one,” he said. “I’m glad my coaches had faith to put me out here against a pretty good ballteam.

“I couldn’t get that last guy, but that’s baseball.”

Best ran into his most difficult inning in the bottom of the first, when the Lumberjacks loaded the bases with no outs on two errors and a hit-by-pitch.

“I’m just like, man, ‘Don’t let this be like the Woodland game all over again,’ “ Best said.

But he settled down. He retired the next three batters, then seven more in a row to cruise into the fourth inning.

The Monarchs picked up their only run in the top of the second. Devin St. Jean drew a leadoff walk, stole second, and then came all the way around to score on a throwing error to make it a 1-0 game.

Other than that, Blix was nearly flawless. He allowed a single to Max Leach in the top of the fourth and an infield hit by Devin St. Jean to lead off the seventh, but only one runner reached second base after the second inning.

“He was absolutely huge,” RAL coach Mark Hulings said. “We put our spurs in Gunnar today, and he pretty much carried us.”

After RAL got two baserunners in the fourth with an error and a walk, Best retired another 10 in a row.

But with two outs in the seventh, he walked Tanner Hulings on four pitches. When ball one to Vanderwerf sailed high, Richards made the move to Kusakabe.

“Unfortunately, I thought he was getting a little tired out there,” Richards said. “He was at 105 pitches in 80-degree weather. He was calling timeout on his own to catch his breath.

“We should be able to get one out.”

In the end, it was MM’s five errors in the field that doomed the Monarchs — and RAL’s refusal to quit that saved the Jacks.

“One hit, and we won a ballgame,” Coach Hulings said. “How many times does that happen?”