Spokane7
37°
May 24, 2009 in Sports
North Central, Shadle earn state
Talk about a team of destiny.
The North Central Indians are that and more after winning three of four games on Saturday at the 3A regional softball tournament at Hanford High School in Richland to earn the No. 2 seed to the state tournament – joining tourney champion Shadle Park to give the Greater Spokane League two state qualifiers.
The Indians (12-13) began the day with a 4-3 victory over Mt. Spokane (13-10) – coming from behind twice. NC scored the winning run in the top of the seventh when Karasa Wise led off with a double, was bunted to third, and scored on a single by Kilee Brown.
NC fell to the Hanford Falcons in the second game 3-0, but bounced back to rout the East Valley Knights (11-14) 11-1 and then turned the tables on the Falcons with a 3-0 victory. Sophomore left-hander Echo Barline pitched all four games for the Indians.
Shadle Park (18-5) won a laugher and a nail-biter to earn the No. 1 seed.
The Highlanders opened with a 13-3 win over East Valley. Amber Johnson drove in three runs with a pair of hits as Shadle scored six runs in the fourth inning and seven more in the fifth to 10-run the Knights.
Shadle was rolling along against Hanford in its next game – taking an 11-5 lead into the bottom of the seventh and then narrowly avoiding disaster. The Falcons pushed across five runs before right fielder Kali Reid threw a runner out at first to end the game with the tying run on second base. Reid had four assists to first base in the game. Danielle Lynn scored four runs for the Highlanders, while Megan Skillingstad had three hits and two RBIs.
In an earlier game, East Valley edged West Valley of Yakima 1-0 in a loser-out contest.
4A
It was a dismal day for the Greater Spokane League teams at the regional tourney in Yakima. It was one-and-done for Lewis and Clark (8-17) after falling to Kamiakin 7-0. Central Valley (20-3) fared a little better – knocking off Richland 2-0 in its first game of the day before falling to Eastmont 7-1 in a loser-out.
2A
Allison Holst tossed a complete-game five-hitter, striking out seven along the way, to help the Colville Indians beat the Pullman Greyhounds 5-1 in the championship game of the District 7 tournament at University High School.
Amanda Hamilton went 2 for 3 and drove in a run for the second-seeded Indians (19-3), who earned the top seed to the state tourney at Carlon Park in Selah on Friday and Saturday.
Top-seeded Pullman (18-4) bounced back to beat West Valley 7-0 to earn the second seed to state. Pullman’s Erica Hanson allowed just one hit while striking out 14. She also went 2 for 3 with a home run and four RBIs.
In earlier games, Cheney (7-15) eliminated Deer Park (9-14) 8-5 on Gracie Pitts’ walk-off grand slam in the seventh inning. West Valley (15.8) blanked Clarkston (11-11) 2-0 in a loser-out game on the strength of Candice Boyd’s two-run first-inning double and a three-hit, 13-strikeout performance from pitcher Rachel Meagley. West Valley ousted Cheney 3-2 in eight innings with Gabby Espidola driving in the winning run.
1A
Lakeside (18-4) rallied late to earn the No. 2 seed to state with a 4-2 victory over Omak at the District 6/7 regional in Brewster.
The Eagles trailed 2-0 heading into the top of the seventh, but Heather Hesselgesser ripped a two-out double to knot the score and send it to extra innings. In the eighth, Nicole Jurek and Michaela Brittos hit back-to-back run-scoring doubles to complete the comeback victory.
Vanessa Ahrendt picked up the win for the Eagles. She went the distance and allowed just one earned run on five hits with three strikeouts. She also doubled twice in four at-bats.
Jamie Brunner homered and drove in four runs to lead Chelan to a 7-0 win over Freeman (12-10) in a loser-out game to decide the fourth seed to state.
2B
Rachel Eng tossed a complete-game four-hitter with eight strikeouts and added a run-scoring single to lead the Colfax Bulldogs (19-4) to a 6-3 victory over the Davenport Gorillas (17-4) in the District 7 title game in Medical Lake to decide the top two seeds to the state tournament.
Christa Nyholm’s RBI double in the fourth inning snapped a 2-2 tie for Colfax, which heads to state on Friday and Saturday at the Gateway Sports Complex in Yakima as the top seed.
Selkirk won a pair of loser-out games to grab the third state berth. The Rangers (23-4) rode Audre Reeve’s complete-game four-hitter to a 3-1 win over Lind-Ritzville (14-7) in the opener. Selkirk used a 10-run first inning to roll to a 16-6 win over Reardan (14-10) in the second game to qualify for state. Courtney Holter had a pair of home runs and four RBIs for Selkirk.
In an earlier game, Reardan (15-10) eliminated Springdale (17-6) 8-7 – scoring twice in the top of the seventh to pull out the win.
1B
Jordan Signor fired a complete-game one-hitter and Donna Villegas drove in three runs to power the Inchelium Hornets (17-7) to a 10-0 victory over the Almira/Coulee-Hartline Warriors (15-7) in a District 7 game at Kettle Falls to decide the top two seeds to state.
St. Michael’s (15-7) earned the third and final state berth by scoring seven runs in the top of the seventh inning to beat Cusick (15-8) 12-8 in a loser-out game.
In an earlier game, ACH jumped out to a four-run first-inning lead and survived Cusick’s four-run seventh for a 9-5 victory.
The state tourney runs Friday and Saturday at the Gateway Sports Complex in Yakima.
Virtue, Moir win title 
WSU Text-to-Win Contest 
EWU Text-to-Win Contest 
Enter to win tickets to see Adam Carolla at the Knitting Factory 
softball2 on May 24 at 7:03 p.m.
Yes the East Valley-Shadle game was laughable. It was laughable on so many levels. George Lynn disputed every single call becoming so obnoxious he was benched. Bot of the 3rd Danielle walked to 1st right before a runner on 3rd was called for the 3rd out of the inning. By the bot of the 4th we were winning 2-0. Funny how the 1st batter up was Danielle even though she was the last batter. Our coach questioned it and she was then called out. Shadle then disputed the call halting the game for 20 minutes until the call was reversed in their favor. That was when our players became discouraged and Shadle began to score. Keep in mind EV had been on the field since 10:30 and Shadle only since 1:00. EV also had just finished a 9 inning game beating West Valley Yakima 3-1. So here EV was in their 13th inning of the day and Shadle only in there 4th. It’s exhausting enough having to play Shadle with their ugliness. Even a Shadle parent who was a previous assistant coach to George Lynn thought the call should have stayed in our favor. Not to mention the Whitworth coach was there and was not impressed with the umping and then some. The sportsmanship of the Shadle team is lacking. The worst happens to be Danielle, the coaches daughter. But I guess you follow by example. Danielle was allowed to be disrespectful to the umps, her teammates and the EV players. She can be so cruel to her own teammates and when one of them sticks up for the one being yelled at by her, Danielle then starts to curse that player. The result is Danielle and the poor player sticking up for her teammate are pulled aside by George and that player is instructed to never talk to Danielle like that again. During leauge when we played Shadle our EV pitcher hit Danielle with a wild pitch on accident. It was laughable and pathetic that George called our 16 year old pitcher on her cell phone the next day while she was in class at school. He questioned if she was intentionally trying to hit his players. The only player hit that day by a wild pitch was Danielle. Is this ethical? The 2nd time we played them in league Danielle received a hit when she shouldn’t have. When Danielle hit the ball the runner on 1st running to 2nd ran into the ball causing her to be called out. Had the runner not run into the ball the play would have been made and Danielle would have clearly been out @ 1st. I believe the runner should have been marked with an error but instead Danielle was given a hit. I believe there is too much favortism going on in that program. George coaches, his wife keeps the books, his older daughter assists in coaching and I hear there is another family member who is also involved in the program. It is clearly not a Shadle or George team it is a Danielle team. The teammates Danielle does not care for are not treated fairly by George. I hear this is half the team. While we played them we were standing next to the Hanford coaches who were watching to see who they were playing and they were not impressed with the disputing of every call and the sportsmanship of the coach and his players. So Shadle may have won the ball game but it was East Valley that clearly won the sportsmanship game by a mile I must add. I hope the innocent players on the Shadle team can keep their heads up, their sportsmanship in tact and perservere by not falling in with the players that are the bad seeds. The true GSL winner yesterday was North Central. Their sportsmanship and determination having to play 4 straight games was honorable. I think it’s about time Shadle gets it’s coach and softball program in check.