EV Earns Home Field For Baseball Playoffs

Even though East Valley and West Valley are co-champions in Frontier League baseball, the Knights earned the No. 1 seed and home-field advantage to the district playoffs because they won the season series with WV two games to one.

The regular season ended Wednesday with the Knights defeating Pullman 13-4, WV beating Clarkston 12-5 and Cheney beating Colville 6-3.

For the second straight season, West Valley has at least a share of the Frontier crown. They won the league outright last year.

EV and WV finished the season with records of 11-4, Cheney finished a game behind at 10-5, followed by Colville (7-8), Clarkston (3-12) and Pullman (3-12).

District play begins Saturday morning at 11 at WV with Colville taking on Cheney. The winner of that game will face West Valley at 2 p.m.

That winner will take on East Valley in a best-of-3 series starting May 9 at EV.

On Wednesday at WV, the Eagles tuned up their bats in a big way.

Justin Tichy hit the first pitch of the game to straightaway center field (380 feet) for WV’s first run. That was the beginning of the end for the Bantams.

Tichy went 4 for 5 and drove in two runs, and Tyson Sohns was 4 for 5 with three RBIs. Imada went 3 for 5 with three RBIs, and Tim Eklund and Riley Allen each had three hits and an RBI.

At Cheney, the Blackhawks took control from the outset and never trailed.

The Blackhawks’ Kyle LaGrant went 4 for 5, scored three runs and drove in two. Also, Cheney’s Cory Huston went 2 for 3 and drove in four runs.

At Pullman, the Greyhounds jumped to a 3-1 lead after two innings. However, East Valley answered with a four-run third inning and the game was all but over.

Softball

At Colville, the Indians beat Cheney 9-1. They scored eight of their nine runs in the first three innings and never looked back.

Pitcher Tarrah Brown struck out 15 batters, walked three and threw a one-hitter. Heather Brown was 3 for 4 and scored two runs.

At EV, the Knights registered an 18-0 win over winless Pullman. The Knights got half their runs in the bottom of the first inning.