Wildcats, Eagles advance on high drama SE wins

Colton sophomore Bricyn Abdul cranks it up for the Wildcats.

Colton and St. John/ Endicott baseball teams booked dramatic wins at Colfax Saturday to stay in the campaign for the state 1B finals. The two county teams will travel to Eisenhower High in Yakima Saturday for a four team set which will send one team to the state title game at Parker Field in Yakima next week.

Colton, the SE champs, will play Lummi at 10 a.m. SJE will play Lake Quinault at 1 p.m. Winners will match up for the state ticket at 4 p.m.

Colton goes into the Eisenhower round with seven seniors, some of them veterans of the Colton bid at Yakima when they were sophomores.

The Wildcats took the SE top slot with a 15-9 win over Touchet in a showdown game Saturday at McDonald Field in Colfax.

The Eagles pegged a 3-2 win to eliminate Tri-Cities Prep in the other first round game at Colfax.

The two winners then paired up in a seeding game and Colton advanced to the top seed with a 24-12 enduro win.

Eagle Coach Rick Winters heads for Mason Van Lith after the SJE pitcher worked out of a bases-loaded seventh inning to deliver a one-run survival win for the Eagles.

COLTON started the campaign by shelling Touchet’s Tuff Goble, a pitcher who had throttled them in the league campaign. The Wildcats had a 6-0 lead after three innings, but the Indians came back with an eight run charge in the bottom of the third inning to chase Colton starter Josh Straughan.

Colton Coach Pat Doumit called Bricyn Abdul to the mound, and the big sophomore quickly cooled the Touchet bats. The Indians threatened to break out with a run in the sixth, but Abdul shut the door in the seventh.

Colton meanwhile reclaimed the lead with five runs in the top of the seventh, before Abdul iced it.

“He has been a tremendous boost to our program,” Doumit commented.

Kelsey Cardwell, who relieved Goble in the third inning, took the loss for the Indians.

The Wildcats finished with 14 hits with Straughan tagging a homer to build the first Colton lead. Taylor Spence had three hits with a pair of doubles. Chase Druffel and Andrew Tietjen each had three hits in the opener.

ST. JOHN/ENDICOTT pulled out a 3-2 win with Mason Van Lith throwing an eight hitter. The Eagles broke a 2-2 tie with a run in the top of the last inning and then fought off the Jags who loaded the bases on the last chance seventh.

With two out and the bases loaded, the playoff fate came down to TCP’s Will Hoppes who was wrapping up a big sports career for the Jags. Van Lith got Hoppes to rap a grounder to the second base side. Kyle Raynor scooped it up and shot it over to Trevor Johnson at first base to get the game winning out.

The Eagles scored their first two runs in the first inning. They cracked the lead in the top of the seventh when Dallas Schlunter singled and Evan Raynor picked up the game winning RBI.

In the Colton-SJE seeding game, the Wildcats rapped 18 hits on the way to the 24-12 verdict. They scored nine in the first inning with a grand slam by Chase Druffel. He, Holdan Druffel and Taylor Spence pitched for Colton.

SJE went through six pitchers in an attempt to shut down the Wildcat bats.

Chase Druffel, Tietjen and Straughan each had three of the Colton hits. SJE booked 10 hits in the closer.