|
220 Jewett Blvd,
PO Box 218, White Salmon, WA 98672
Phone: 509.493.2112 |
|
|
| Class 1A Baseball |
|---|
| Rochester knocks Columbia High out of district tournament |
|---|
By Sverre Bakke
A solid start by Columbia High went for naught as Rochester erased an early two-run deficit to post a 7-2 victory in a winner-to-state game at the Southwest District Class 1A Baseball Tournament in Castle Rock.
The Bruins (8-11) put two runs on the scoreboard in their first at-bats of the game. Dane Bargabus led off with a double and scored on Taylor Champion's single. Walks to Jared McDonald and Danny Giron loaded the bases and Kevin Kreps brought in CHS's second run with a single.
But that was as good as it got for White Salmon as Rochester left-hander Luke Steelhammer blanked the Bruins on four hits over the final six innings and helped the Warriors (16-6) nail down one of the district's four regional playoff berths for the third year in a row.
For four innings, McDonald, CHS's senior right-hander, held the advantage for the Bruins, limiting the Warriors to one run on three hits. But Rochester, batting as the home team, got some pitches it could drive in the fifth and produced four runs on five hits--including two doubles and a triple.
"They'd seen Jared's stuff a few times by then and had started to figure him out," Bruins Coach Larry McCutcheon said. "As a result, they hit him pretty good in that inning."
But it was another inning--the top of the first--where McCutcheon felt the Bruins lost the game.
"We had the bases loaded and two runs already in," he said. "If we could have scored three or four more runs, it would have made a difference because we knew we weren't going to shut Rochester out; they're too good a ballclub."
Columbia, however, couldn't come up with the timely hits to sustain the rally--something McCutcheon and the Bruins had seen before.
"That was our big problem all year," McCutcheon noted. "We'd get runners on base and in scoring position, and not be able to get them home. We just had a tough time getting key hits when we needed them."
Last Tuesday in Winlock, McDonald tossed a complete-game four-hitter to lead the Bruins to a 3-1 victory over Montesano in a district elimination game. The stay-alive win came after Columbia lost its district opener, 10-0, in five innings to one of the tournament's two No. 1 seeds, Tenino.
Against Montesano, McDonald had one of his strongest outings of the 2008 season. He shut the Bulldogs out for five innings before running into trouble in the sixth. He hit a batter, gave up a bloop single, then walked two to force in a run. But McDonald rediscovered the strike zone and induced a ground-ball force out to get out of the jam.
In the seventh, McDonald retired Montesano in order in a sequence of outs that featured two outstanding defensive plays: a diving catch by left fielder Jason Collins of a drive down the left-field line, for the second out, and Bargabus fielding a grounder in the hole between first and second and throwing to McDonald covering first for the final out.
"We got very good pitching, played very good defense and made two incredible plays to end that ball game," McCutcheon said. "It was nice to turn that back on them since they're the team that knocked us out of district the last two times."
McDonald, a tough-luck 4-2 loser to Montesano in the 2007 district matchup, finished with three walks and five strikeouts, overcame three CHS errors and yielded just one hit for extra bases (a double).
Columbia, which banged out nine hits in support of McDonald, took a 2-0 lead in the third inning on a single by Giron that scored Bargabus and Kyle Yeager. The Bruins tacked on a third run in the sixth on two hits, a walk and a fielder's choice by Bargabus that brought in Kevin Kreps.
Giron, Bargabus and Yeager each had two hits for Columbia, and Kreps's double accounted for the Bruins' only extra-base knock.
Tenino's Alex Phillips allowed just one hit, walked two and struck out 10 Columbia batters in first-round action at Toledo. His teammates backed him up at the plate early and often, scoring two runs in the first inning, then breaking the game open with a seven-run uprising in the second that was powered by five of the Beavers' seven total hits.
|
| Go to top. |
|
|
