POCATELLO — On days like Tuesday, when the sky is gunmetal gray and the wind is whipping and the temperature is dropping, high school softball becomes much less of a pitching-and-hitting game and much more of a defense-and-baserunning one.

Put the ball in play. Be aggressive. Make them make a mistake.

It’s a mantra that’s repeated by coaches everywhere. In Idaho, where kids can’t play year-round and defenses are often less than polished, that attitude is more than a mantra — it’s a way to win.

So on Tuesday, Pocatello coach Josh Naylor and Preston coach Larry Morrison pulled out enough baserunning tactics and aggressiveness in Preston’s 18-14, eight-inning win to make John McGraw proud.

If it hadn’t been for the cold wind already cutting through O.K. Ward Park, Naylor and Morrison windmilling runners around third could have produced enough energy to power Pocatello’s electrical grid for a week.

“I think baserunning and putting pressure on the defense is just as important as any other aspect of the game,” Naylor said. “More often than not, it will lead to a big inning. We don’t often hold our runners back. If they hit a ball in the gap and they think they can get a double, they have free rein to do so.”

Pocatello scored two early runs on one passed ball when the throw to the pitcher covering the plate got away.

Preston struck back, scoring on a ground ball back to the pitcher when the runner from third broke for the plate on the throw to first.

And the visiting Indians then took their first lead of the game in the fourth by scoring two runs on a safety squeeze bunt, plating the first run on the original play and the second when the throw to first was wild.

“That’s kind of my thing,” Morrison said. “When you’re playing a conference team, you want to grab bases, because those are points you’re leaving on the board if you’re not doing that. You try to grab every base and surprise the other team. Yeah, we took some outs, but we were able to keep their catcher guessing, keep their defense guessing.”

That two-run bunt was the start of a seven-run fourth inning that gave Preston a 10-4 lead.

Pocatello battled back and tied the game with two outs in the bottom of the seventh on Lakecia Ramirez’s RBI triple, followed by a Preston error on the next batter that scored Ramirez.

Just put the ball in play.

“At that point, it just starts with getting a baserunner on,” Naylor said. “It was a matter of putting the ball in play hard and see what happens.”

That gave Pocatello another chance, but extra innings seemed to wake up the Preston bats, no baserunning derring-do required.

Miah Lusk, who’d thrown 3 1/3 innings of one-run relief, got the first two outs without the runner on second (there at the start of the inning because of the extra-inning rule) moving.

But then Poky’s ace walked two to load the bases, Dru Despain’s two-run single up the middle broke the tie, and Preston added five more hits in a row to take an 18-11 lead to the bottom of the eighth.

Pocatello’s first three hitters reached base, but Preston’s Jaycee Larson got pop-ups back to herself and then to Despain to end the game with the tying run on deck.

Larson had four hits, drove in four runs and scored three times for Preston. Pocatello’s Taylor Bunderson had two hits, including a triple, and matched Larson with four RBIs and three runs.

The win ties Pocatello (10-11, 3-3 4A District 5) and Preston (11-10, 2-3) in the loss column in district play. Preston hosts Century on Thursday, with a Diamondbacks win giving them the outright district title and a loss leaving all three teams tied at 3-3.

“It was a good confidence builder,” Morrison said about Tuesday’s game. “(Pocatello) was on a roll, and it was nice to come in and play a really good game. The biggest thing is to keep the momentum going, so when we go into the district tournament we know what we can do against these teams.”

PRESTON 18, POCATELLO 14 (8)

Preston 021 700 17 — 18 24 5

Pocatello 310 041 23 — 14 17 3

Preston — WP: Jaycee Larson. 2B: Charly Bair, Khloe Hobson, Megan Johnson, Kendall Keller, Larson, Shandee Parker. 3B: Vanessa Griffeth, Keller.

Pocatello — LP: Miah Lusk. 2B: Kirstine Kent. 3B: Lakecia Ramirez, Taylor Bunderson.