Vikings Pull Off A-1 Upset Coeur D’Alene Thumps Top Seed Lewiston 11-2

The Coeur d’Alene Vikings, forced to play second fiddle all season in Inland Empire League baseball, took over the first seat in the Idaho A-1 Region I tournament Thursday.

The second-seeded Vikings pounced on Lewiston ace pitcher Clay Johnson for 11 runs and 11 hits for an 11-2 shellacking of the Bengals at Church Field.

The win puts CdA (17-9), state runner-up last year, one win away from returning to state.

“We want to go to state and we’ll do everything we have to do to get there,” CdA coach Brian Holgate said. “We played very hard.”

In a loser-out game Thursday, Sandpoint held off Lake City 10-8 at Memorial Field in Sandpoint.

That sets up a loser-out game Saturday morning between league champ Lewiston (20-5) and Sandpoint (12-13). The game begins at 11.

The winner will meet CdA at 1:30. The loser-out survivor would have to beat the Viks twice to earn the region’s lone state berth.

If an “if necessary” game is required, it would be played Monday at the site of the highest seed.

“We just had one of those days,” said Lewiston coach Tom Grunenfelder, whose team took three of four league games from CdA. “We just didn’t play our best baseball and they played extremely well. Plus, their kid threw a good game.”

CdA was led by the pitching of sophomore David Seccombe, who tossed seven strikeouts and limited Lewiston to just three hits, two by Mike Mayton. Seccombe also went 2 for 2 and scored two runs.

After a slow start and the apparent emergence of a pitching duel, the Viks grew stronger defensively and at the plate as Johnson weakened. CdA added three runs in the fourth inning for a 5-2 lead and another for a 6-2 advantage in the fifth.

Johnson, appearing tired with many pitches hitting the dirt, walked three Viks in the fifth inning and hit another before escaping with a groundout and the bases loaded.

Two more Vik runs came in the sixth and three more in the seventh before Lewiston reliever Matt Davis came in to record the final out.

Holgate praised his hitters and noted that Johnson was off-target.

“He was falling behind in the counts and we took advantage of the situation,” Holgate said.

Rob Crain went 3 for 3 for the Viks, and teammates Bret Whiteman, Kirk Gosch and Jim Rupp each had two hits. Gosch had a pair of two-run triples in the sixth and seventh innings.

CdA committed four errors in the first three innings, which contributed to both Lewiston runs. But it played flawlessly through the remainder of the game. The Viks stranded 10 baserunners.

“We’re definitely not done,” Holgate said. “We’ve got work to do.”

Sandpoint left-handed pitcher Shawn Warren picked up his second big win in a week.

The Bulldog went the distance as Sandpoint dodged elimination. Warren had been the winner Saturday when Sandpoint upset league champ Lewiston 17-1.

Sandpoint will try to make it two upsets in a week when it meets the Bengals in a loser-out game Saturday at Lewiston.

“He’s one helluva competitor,” Sandpoint coach Mike Givens said of Warren. “Now we have to change gears a little bit. We were thinking we’d end up playing Coeur d’Alene again. We beat Lewiston once. Hopefully, we can go down there and do it again.”

Warren helped himself when Sandpoint added to a 5-4 lead in the fifth inning. The Bulldogs scored four runs in the inning, three coming on a double by Warren. He finished with four RBIs.

Lake City ends the season at 6-19.

A-2 District I-II

St. Maries pulled an upset in a first-round game, knocking off two-time defending state champ Lakeland 6-3 at Rathdrum.

The Lumberjacks (9-13) will meet top-seeded Moscow (20-5), the Intermountain League champ, in the district title game Saturday morning when the tourney concludes in Rathdrum. The game is scheduled for 10.

Moscow advanced by thumping Priest River 9-0 at Moscow.

Lakeland (14-5) will meet Priest River (9-13) in a loser-out game following the championship contest, at 12:30. The Lakeland-Priest River winner will take on the Moscow-St. Maries loser at 3 to decide the runner-up berth to state.

At Rathdrum, St. Maries pitcher Trent Duffey kept the Hawks off balance and benefited from good defense.

“They played better defense than we did,” Lakeland coach Ken Busch said. “And they got the clutch hits. Both pitchers threw well.”