5/15/17
Here is the full coverage of the District 4 2A Baseball Tournament. Each round we have scores, stories, links to additional stories or coverage and photo galleries.
Link to District Tournament Bracket
Consolation Bracket Round
Columbia River 14, Black Hills 8 (Seeding Game 3rd/4th)
Black Hills 11, Centralia 7 (loser out)
This loser of this game had their season come to an end while the winner would advance to Saturday’s Regional round of the State Tournament. The Wolves began with a 4-0 lead that they put on the board last Saturday at WF West in the top of the 1st when the rains hit.
The Tigers finally got their 1st at bats and went right to work to get back in the game and scored 2. That would be as close as they would get as the Wolves would get leads of 7-2, 9-4 and then 9-7. When the Tigers scored those 3 runs their rally was snapped off by an extremely controversial call when one of the Tigers slid into 3rd and a Black Hills defender lept at the bag and pushed the runner off making contact. The umpire ruled him out ending the rally with Centralia’s #1 hitter on deck Hodges Bailey.
Black Hills would add another 2 runs to go up 11-7 into the bottom of the 7th. The Tigers battled back loading the bases with 2 outs when Bailey got his chance but grounded out to end the game. This is only the 2nd time the Wolves have advanced to Regionals in school history and 2nd time in 3 years under Coach Todd Venable.
The Wolves then turned around and played Columbia River in a seeding game with the winner taking 3rd and the loser 4th. The Chieftains won the nightcap in the rain but both teams emptied their benches and played a lot of players.
Columbia River will play in the Centralia Regional and open action against Highline. Also in that Regional is WF West who will face Eatonville in their opener. The 2 winners then face off for a chance to go to Yakima. From now on all games are loser out and only 1 team advances from each of the 4 Regionals and will play the final 4 for the Championship May 26-27.
Black Hills will head to the Auburn Regional and open against North Kitsap. That game is set to play after Tumwater takes on Lynden.
Photo Gallery
Columbia River 4, Hockinson 1
(Chehalis, WA) The Columbia River Chieftains knew they would have to find some offense against this Hawks team as Hockinson had their number in the regular season beating them twice by a combined 14-0. Hockinson was the home team and looked like they were picking up where they left off the last time these two teams met.
Matt Henry led off with a double and Brooks Dyer sac bunted him over to 3rd. Connor Newman popped out for the 2nd out. CR’s starting pitcher Dakota Mason then walked the next 2 batters to fill the bases. Mason then got Colton Wheeler to swing and miss and struck out to escape the inning without any damage.
The Chieftains would closely mirror what the Hawks did but they took 
advantage. Royce Cone led off with a single off Hawks starter Mitch Lines. Sam Jacobs then laid down a perfect bunt to the left of the pitching mound and Lines just missed reaching the bunt and Jacobs made it safely while Cone moved to 2nd. Paul Meister then walked to fill the bases. After a pop out, Brian Race lifted one to the outfield knocking in Cone with an RBI sac fly. Gavin Manheimer then ripped a single scoring another run and the Chieftains led 2-0 after the 1st inning.
CR added another run in the 2nd when Shawn Craig led off with a single. The catcher would then get a courtesy runner Shawn Sadler. Cone would single again with 1 out and Craig moved to 3rd. Meister flew one to centerfield scoring Sadler on a sac fly and after 2 innings they were up 3-0.
Mason settled into quite a groove striking out 10 over his 5 innings, he did 
walk 5 but none of them would come around to score.He struck out the side in both the 2nd and 3rd innings, he did give up a couple of hits and a walk but no runs. Mason would get an insurance run after his work was done in the bottom of the 5th when Meister got on and stole 2nd. Sadler came in to run for him and advanced to 3rd when a throw from Hawks catcher Connor Newman was a little low and bounced through to centerfield. Sadler was on his way to 3rd when Hockinson’s CF Canon Racanelli air mailed the throw to 3rd well over the head of Colton Wheeler and in fact over the side fence and out of play allowing Sadler to score to make it 4-0 after 5.
Hockinson had one last chance and #9 hitter Noah Stecher led off the top of the 7th and needed 4 runs to keep their season alive. Stecher put a charge in one with a high deep shot to right field and it just kept going, going gone for a home run. It was now 4-1 and back to the top of the order. Reliever Kade Gerlock then walked Henry and the tying run would come to the on-deck circle but that would be as close as it would get. Dyer flew out to left field, Newman popped up to 1st and Racanelli popped out to 2nd where Derek Mettler would catch it and the Chieftains celebrated.
CR has earned a spot in next Saturday’s Regionals and will play either at Centralia or Auburn depending on if they are the 3rd or 4th seed. They will play the winner of the suspended game between Black Hills and Centralia on Monday at the RAC in Lacey. Hockinson had their season come to an end.
Our Tommy Lowe of Greene Realty Players of the Game went to Columbia River’s Dakota Mason and Hockinson’s Noah Stecher. Our ProActive Physical Therapy Play of the Game went to the Chieftains Brian Rice who handled what appeared to a routine grounder but took a hop at the last second when Rice deflected it off his glove straight up in the air and then grabbed it bare handed and tagged the base for the out, ironically getting Stecher our player of the game for Hockinson, the only time Stecher didn’t get on base.
Photo Gallery
District Championship Game
WF West 6, Tumwater 4
(Chehalis, WA) The 1st pitch was set for 5p and at 4:15 WF West AD Jeff Johnson was literally seconds from calling it but he decided since both teams were here he’d wait another 15 minutes and the Bearcats are thrilled he decided to be patient. Not only did the weather clear enough to get the game started the whole 7 inning game got played and the Bearcats held off Tumwater for a 6-4 win to take the District Championship in a 6-4 win over the T-Birds.
When you get to this point of the play-offs a coin flip determines who is the home and visitor teams and Tumwater won the flip and chose to be the home team. So leading off for the “visiting” Bearcats was Tyson Guerrero who belted a shot deep to center on a 3-2 count off Tumwater starting pitcher Landen Jordan and ended up with a triple. Dakota Hawkins then flew one to left field for a sac fly RBI and the Cats took a 1-0 lead.
Tumwater answered in the bottom of the 1st with Noah Andrews leading off 
with a single. After a fly out Logan Hayes walked followed by a grounder by Jackson Davis to Hawkins at 2nd who flipped it to Drew Forgione for one out but in his effort to try and turn 2 bounced a throw to Tyler Pallas at 1st that got by him and scored Andrews and after 1 it was even at 1-1.
WF West then had a very strange top of the 2nd and even a weirder 1-2-3 inning for Jordan. He gave up a base hit, got a strike out and gave up another base hit. The Cats helped with some base running blunders getting thrown out twice at 3rd base.
The Bearcats would add 3 in the top of the 3rd when Kolby Steen led off with a double. After a fly out Tyson Guerrero would single and then a strike out for the 2nd out. Hawkins and Pallas then each grounded balls to infielders and 2 errors on throwing to 1st cost the T-Birds 3 runs and trailed 4-1.
Tumwater would answer though with Andrews getting on by an error with 1 out. He advanced to 2nd on a balk by starting Bearcat pitcher Daniel Fagerness, one of the few mistakes the sophomore hurler would make. Noah Sirkel then hit a rope into right field and Andrews scored. Sirkel got to 2nd on a bobble in the outfield.
There were several errors in this game but just as many mental errors and Sirkel would get caught leaning the wrong way and got picked off 2nd which would come back to bite the Birds. Hayes would get on by an error and then scored when Davis hammered a double. Clearly Sirkel would have scored as well but the T-Birds got 2 back and trailed 4-3.
The Cats added 2 more in the 4th Tysen Paul and Austin Emery singled back to back. Camden Bull came in to run for Paul. Steen then got on by an error that would knock in Bull then Adrian Boites hit a Sac fly scoring Emery. Guerrero would get hit by a pitch to re-load the bases and Forgione would Sac fly in the 3rd run of the inning and the Cats were up 6-3.
Tumwater would get a run in the 5th inning, the final inning for both starting pitchers. Andrews would get his 2nd hit and eventually score his 3rd run of the game to make it 6-4. Tumwater would have a final run at it in the bottom of 7 and again Andrews would get on in the lead-off position. After a strike out Hayes singled and the tying runs were on 1st and 2nd.
This led to the ProActive Physical Therapy Play of the Game. Jackson Davis 
drill a line shot that looked for sure would drop in front of centerfielder Tyson Guerrero but Guerrero decided he could make a play and dove for it and snagged it robbing Davis of a hit and keeping the runs on base. Had it got past Guerrero no doubt both runs would have come around and the game would have been tied. The last out of the game was a fly ball to left field and Camden Bull easily made the grab and the Cats celebrated their Championship.
WF West will get stay home basically for Regionals and play the 1pm game next Saturday at Wheeler Field in Centralia. Tumwater will travel to Auburn for the 10am game next Saturday. Both teams need to win 2 games to get to the final 4 in Yakima.
Our Tommy Lowe of the Greene Realty Group Players of the Game went to WF Wests’ Daniel Fagerness and Tumwater’s Logan Hayes.
Photo Gallery
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5/10/17
Winner’s Bracket (Winners to Dist Title Game & State Regionals, losers to consolation bracket.)
WF West 12, Black Hills 4
Game Story by Jordan Nailon on the Lewis County Sports Blog
Photo Gallery
Tumwater 11, Hockinson 5
Game Story by Paul Valencia in the Columbian
Photo Gallery
Consolation Bracket (Losers out)
Columbia River 4, RA Long 3
Game Story by Joshua Hart in the Daily News
Centralia 15, Ridgefield 4
Game Story by Jordan Nailon on the Lewis County Sports Blog
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Opening Round Scores:
Hockinson 4, Centralia 2
Game Story by Matt Baide on Lewis County Sports Blog
WF West 6, Columbia River 1
Game Story by Matt Baide on Lewis County Sports Blog
Black Hills 5, RA Long 1
Game Story by Joshua Hart in the Daily News
Tumwater 6, Ridgefield 0
(Tumwater, WA) Tumwater jumped right on some opening inning mistakes 
by the Spudders in the bottom of the 1st inning and never looked back. Spencer Anderson took the mound for Ridgefield and gave up a lead off single to Noah Andrews then walked Noah Sirkel and Logan Hayes to fill the bases with no outs. Jackson Davis then grounded one to shortstop Kellen Bringhurst who flipped it to 2nd baseman Tim Radosevich for the force but could not turn 2 and Andrews scored.
Hayes then stole 2nd and Sirkel scored when the throw to 2nd to try and get Hayes bounced over Bringhurst’s glove, the throw from catcher Brock Harrison. Zach Jones then grounded one to short but an error kept him on base while Davis scored to make it 3-0.
Tumwater added a run in the 5th inning when Sirkel singled and scored on a Davis sacrifice fly to right field. The T-Birds added 2 more runs in the 6th when Jones led off with a walk followed by a double from Jakob Holbrook. Dustin Doll then dropped in a Texas leaguer in shallow center to score Sirkel and Holbrook scored on an RBI ground out by Noah Andrews.
Logan Chase pitched another solid game for the T-Birds but did have to wiggle out of a couple of situations. The best chance for the Spudders to get on the board was in the top of the 2nd. Boston Clark got on with a 1 out bunt base hit then Jimmy Wallace walked with 2 out. Radosevich then grounded none sharply to Noah Andrews but the ball bounced and ran up his arm filling the bases with 2 outs.
That set up our ProActive Physical Therapy Play of the Game when lead off hitter nailed a line drive right at T-Bird 3rd baseman Dustin Doll who made the grab denying the Spudders from getting on the board. Had the ball got by Doll at least 2 would have scored making it 3-2 and the whole complexion of the game could have changed. Chase went 5 and third with 4 strike-outs. Wes Swick came in to relieve and finished off the Spudder in 6 up, 6 down fashion.
Tumwater plays Hockinson tomorrow in the Winner’s Bracket with a trip to the District Championship and to State Regionals on the line, the loser will fall into the consolation bracket.
Our Tommy Lowe of Greene Realty Players of the Game went to Tumwater’s Noah Sirkel and Ridgefield’s Kevin Miser.
Photo Gallery