Eagles get shot at title; ACH stops Colton bid

Jake Straughan came in to finish the Colton win over Curlew in the first game at Central Valley.

St. John/Endicott prevailed in three loser-out games last week advance to the state 1B title game Saturday night at Parker Field in Yakima. The Eagles advanced to the championship game after linking two wins in the 1B playoff round at Eisenhower High in Yakima Sunday.

They will play the defending champs, the Almira-Coulee-Hartline Warriors, who took the two-win title out of the other semi-final round at Central Valley.

ACH advanced after topping Colton 6-3 in the last of the three game set at Central Valley. That matchup was a repeat of last year’s title game at Parker when Warriors stopped an amazing season-end run by the Wildcats to take the 2010 title with an 8-3 win.

SJE’s Eagles closed out their run with a 5-0 shutout of Oakville at Eisenhower. Bryce Bennett allowed just four hits while pitching the first five innings of the shutout. Kyle Raynor retired the last six Oakville batters in a row to preserve the shutout over the last two innings. Raynor fanned four of the last six O-batters.

The Eagles had 11 hits with Evan Raynor tagging a 3-3 and three RBIs. Cole McCanna and Mason Van Lith added triples.

Samuel Raynor had one of the top defensive plays when he threw out a runner at third base from deep center to squelch a potential Oakville rally.

Kyle Raynor, Van Lith and Evan Raynor booked a double play to stop Oakville again in the fourth inning.

The Eagles went into the decider game after pegging an 11-1 win over Lake Quinault. Van Lith struck out 11 and allowed five hits for the win.

The Eagles pegged 15 hits in the first round with Samuel Raynor bagging a 3-4 at the plate with a triple and three RBIs. Dakota Hallenius hit 2-3 with three RBIs. Dallas Schluneger put one off the fence for a double.

COLTON and ACH battled into an extra inning on the CV diamond before the Warriors took the 6-3 deciding win to get the “returning champion” honor for Saturday night’s macthup at Parker.

ACH pitcher Jacob Olmstead shut out Colton for six innings while the Warriors scored one run each in the top of the first and the top of the sixth.

Colton came alive to tie it at 2-2 in the last chance seventh with Holdan Druffel and Jordan Druffel getting the RBI hits. The Wildcats had two runners on base with one just one out, but they couldn’t collect on what could have been a walk-off win for the state ticket back to Parker.

The Warriors roared back with four runs in the top of the extra eighth inning to take the win.

Taylor Spence rapped a solo homer in the bottom of the eighth.

Josh Straughan gave up seven hits in taking the loss.

In the first round at CV, Colton booked a 9-7 comeback win over Curlew. The game had a ragged start with Curlew bagging three runs in the top of the first inning.

Colton tied it at 3-3. Curlew came back to score five runs in the top of the second, but two were scratched after a lead runner failed to touch a bag. The scores came off the board after Colton was granted the appeal.

Colton came back to score four in the bottom of the second and take the lead.

The Wildcats finished the first game with 14 hits. Justin Meyer and Spence each had two hits with a double. Dustin Devorak also had two hits.

The Warriors faced off against Colton after hammering neighboring Wilbur-Creston 15-1 in their first-round game.