Bulldog girls head for Yakima

After booking a split in a long day of District 7 finals a Spokane’s Merkel Fields, the Colfax Bulldogs will depart for Yakima’s Gateway park for another shot at a state 2B softball trophy. Colfax Friday will play LaConner at 9 a.m. in the first round.

The Bulldogs and Braves are bracketed opposite DeSales and Pateros. Losers of those first round games will play at 3 p.m. Friday and the winners will play at 7 p.m. to advance in the 16-team entry.

Colfax last year booked a 3-2 run at state, but came back without one of the four trophies.

Saturday at Merkel, Colfax crushed Liberty 21-4 in their first game to guarantee a slot in the state finals, but they lost 8-9 to Northwest Christian in the championship round which went for nine innings. The NWC win put the Crusaders up against Brewster in the opening round Friday on the other side of the 16-team state entry.

Liberty started their long day with a 8-3 win over Reardan to go up against the Bulldogs in the first state ticket game in the afternoon.

Colfax hammered 12 hits off the Lancers who moved their ace pitcher, Jordyn Soliday, out of the pitching ring after the first inning.

The Bulldogs scored 13 runs in the fourth inning with 12 of those scoring before the Lancers booked an out. Amy Hickman capped the charge with a three run homer.

Hickman allowed the Lancers six hits, struck out eight and walked just one in taking the win.

Lauren Moore had three hits in the opener for four RBIs. Sammi Pearson and Rachel Robinson each tagged a double and single.

Northwest Christian advanced to the championship game on a 7-5 win over Davenport.

In the title round, Colfax and NWC locked up at 7-7 after seven innings and went into extra innings. Neither team scored in the eighth, and the two teams went to a runner-on-second mode in the ninth to resolve the tie.

Colfax opened the inning with Lauren Moore on second base, and Robinson rapped a hit to score her. The Crusaders then executed a double play to shut it off.

NWC then took the title with two runs in the bottom of the ninth. They used a bunt to move their starting runner from second to third base. Another bunt, a spinner, remained in-bounds to put another NWC runner at first.

Hanna Chaffin then booked the hero hit of the day, a walk-off double that scored the two NWC runners.

Each side allowed 10 hits. Hickman struck out nine Crusaders and walked just two.

Kaysha Lyman’s two-run homer topped the Colfax bats. Moore had three more hits and Robinson had two singles and a triple.