HS Baseball: 2A District 4 Semifinals Set After Wild Opening Round

5/13/2025

Postseason baseball is underway in Southwest Washington and one of the premier high school tournaments is the District 4 2A baseball tournament. Three days to decide the four teams that will represent the district in the state tournament with the opening day taking place at the higher seeds before everything moves to Ridgefield for the second and third day.

This post will serve as a hub for the tournament and will be updated with links to other news outlets coverage of games as well as our coverage down at the bottom. Check back throughout the tournament to stay up to date on everything happening.

District 4 2A Baseball Tournament

Link to District Bracket

Quarterfinals

Tuesday, May 13th
W.F. West 4, Mark Morris 2 (The Chronicle)
RA Long 9, Aberdeen 0
Tumwater 9, Ridgefield 5 (Coverage Below)
Hockinson 5, Columbia River 0

Wednesday, May 14th @ RORC (Ridgefield)

Semifinals (Winner to State)
RA Long vs. W.F. West, 4pm First Pitch
Hockinson vs. Tumwater, 6:30pm First Pitch

Loser Out
Mark Morris vs. Aberdeen, 4pm First Pitch
Ridgefield vs. Columbia River, 6:30pm First Pitch

Tumwater 9, Ridgefield 5

(Tumwater, WA) District 4 2A’s baseball tournament is always one of the very toughest district tournaments in the state each and every year. With the 2A state champions coming out of District 4 each of the last three seasons, this year’s tournament would be just as strong as ever. Opening up play in the quarterfinals on Tuesday would be the #3 seed out of the GSHL 2A in the Ridgefield Spudders against the #2 seed out of the EvCo 2A in the Tumwater Thunderbirds. Neither team would be eliminated on Tuesday, but one would be a win away from locking up a spot in the state tournament.

Derek Thompson would get the start on the mound for Tumwater and Wyatt Hemmelman would take the ball for Ridgefield. Both starters began the game strong with a couple of scoreless innings each. Only one of the first seven batters reached for Ridgefield against Thompson while Tumwater left three stranded total in the first two frames facing Hemmelman.

With the bottom of the order beginning the 3rd for the Spudders, both Logan Perry and Jacob Lewis put together strong at-bats, battling back from 0-2 to draw back-to-back walks. Landon DeBeaumont would hit into a fielder’s choice to put runners on the corners with one out. A wild pitch however would bring home Perry to give Ridgefield the 1-0 lead. A single by Caleb Tortora and a walk for Liam Ostrom loaded the bases before Hemmelman drove in a run with a fielder’s choice to make it 2-0. A two-out RBI single by Jared Gottsch followed and Ridgefield had sprinted out to a 3-0 lead.

That one inning seemed to take the wind out of the T-Birds sails. Tumwater got the leadoff man on in the 3rd and 4th innings but left them both stranded. Ridgefield would add on in the 4th as well. Henry Wikstrom was hit by a pitch to begin the inning before stealing second to get into scoring position. An errant pickoff attempt would get by everyone including the center fielder, allowing Wikstrom to score from second to make it 4-0.

In the 5th, the Spudders looked to break things wide open against new pitcher Braeden Konrad. Konrad immediately dealt with traffic as Caleb Tortora reached on an error and moved up to second on a passed ball. Konrad then settled in by striking out Liam Ostrom and getting Wyatt Hemmelman to groundout to put Tortora on third with two outs. In stepped Jared Gottsch again with two outs and his clutch gene activated yet again. On the first pitch from Konrad, Gottsch laced a base hit right back up the middle to bring home Tortora with his second two-out RBI single of the game, making it 5-0 Ridgefield.

Tumwater found themselves in a really tough spot but a single and stolen base by Peyton Davis put a runner in scoring position with one out in the bottom of the 5th. Will Bond would then get hit by a pitch before Luke Overbay was robbed of a base hit by Landon DeBeaumont at short. With runners on the corners and two outs, Landon Roy would keep hope alive for Tumwater. Roy smoked a line drive off the glove of Ostrom at third for a base hit. Davis came home to score to get the T-Birds on the board trailing 5-1.

Ridgefield left runners on the corners in the 6th and the game drastically changed. Jimmy Womach would begin the bottom of the 6th with an absolute bomb to right field for a solo home run to make it 5-2 and that lit the fuse for Tumwater. A Wyatt Chase walk was followed by Kade Contreras flying out to center for the first out of the inning, Cody Lambert singled to bring the tying run to the plate in Peyton Davis. While he wouldn’t tie the game, Davis would record his third hit of the game, driving in Chase to make it 5-3. In stepped Will Bond who continued the barrage for Tumwater with a base hit to make it 5-4, but as Bond moved up to second the throw to second would get away, allowing Davis to score to tie the game at 5-5.

Tumwater was still not satisfied. After Luke Overbay was hit by a pitch, Landon DeBeaumont came in to pitch for the Spudders. He would walk Landon Roy to load the bases for Derek Thompson. After having a really tough game, Thompson was at the plate in the biggest moment of the game. All the bad was washed away with one swing of the bat as Thompson came up big in the most grand way possible. Thompson sent a fly ball deep to left field that carried over the fence for a grand slam. With a smile on his face as he was met by his teammates at the plate, Derek Thompson had brough the T-Birds all the way back with Tumwater now leading 9-5.

The eight-run bottom of the 6th would set the table for Braeden Konrad to close the game down. A tremendous outing in relief, Konrad locked things down for Tumwater and kept morale and hope alive by keeping the T-Birds withing striking distance. He would go three innings in relief and allowed one unearned run on three hits with one walk and five strikeouts. Three of those strikeouts came in the 7th as we made quick work of the Spudders to complete the comeback. Tumwater’s late inning surge was enough to take down Ridgefield 9-5.

Our Thorbeckes MVP of the game went to Peyton Davis for Tumwater. The center fielder was consistently on base, going 3-4 and just missing his fourth hit by half of a step. Davis scored two runs while driving in another and stealing a base as well.

With the win, Tumwater moves into the district semifinals on Wednesday against Hockinson after the Hawks upset defending state champions Columbia River. The T-Birds will take on the Hawks at 6:30pm in Ridgefield. Ridgefield will play in a loser out game on Wednesday at 6:30pm against Columbia River.