Rain Clouds Placement In State Softball
Rain created a bizarre ending to the State AA softball tournament, but it didn’t dampen the sense of humor of coaches from West Valley and East Valley.
Both the Eagles and Knights were part of a seven-team tie for third place after shuttling between Tacoma, here and Yakima in order to play the abbreviated event.
WV was 2-1 in the tournament. EV finished 1-1-1 following a 12-inning tie with Colville.
“I don’t know if the third place trophy will be cut into seven parts,” Knight coach Randy Burkhart joked. “I hope we get a bit with a little metal on it.”
He said he wouldn’t have been able to laugh about the result a week ago after traveling to Tacoma, where the tournament was rained out, coming home, then heading to Yakima where the event was partially played on Wednesday.
“It was quite an adventure, not knowing when and where we’d play,” he said.
WV had just completed a game and was awaiting another when the tourney was suspended by another downpour. All but four unbeaten teams were sent home for good.
“I told the girls this must be the best team I’ve coached. It’s the only one I’ve taken to state twice,” quipped Steve Kent. “On the other hand, it’s the first team that’s ever gone to a state tournament and won the last game it played. So that’s kind of neat.”
East Valley lost 1-0 in its opener to eventual semifinalists Othello on a fourth-inning walk and triple. Three times the Knights had runners at second base.
“But we weren’t able to push across any runs,” said Burkhart.
In the second game, EV won 4-2 over Lindbergh with Tricia Stookey driving in a pair of runs and the other two coming on errors.
Rebecca Triplett fanned 17 in two outings.
Against Frontier League co-champion Colville, Stookey doubled in a first-inning run. The Indians reciprocated. Thereafter freshman Tara DaCorte hurled 11 shutout innings and finished with 14 strikouts.
“We had our opportunities and they had theirs,” said Burhkart.
In the 11th, Malea Schumacher hit a ball to the fence for what likely would have been a triple, but slipped rounding first base and EV did not score.
EV has no seniors on its team.
West Valley opened with a 7-2 win over Liberty, scoring six runs in the third inning on walks and Kari Aquino’s two-run double.
The Eagles lost 11-0 to eventual champion Capital, Haley Henry getting the only two hits. They then topped Seattle Prep 3-1, Gabby McClintock twice drove in Andrea Green with singles.
WV finished with a 22-4 record. Darcy Sohns pitched the last three games of her stellar four-year career.
“I was kind of thinking we belonged in the company of the four semifinalists,” said Kent. “We may have closed the gap a bit, but we haven’t got it completely closed.”
, DataTimes