East Valley, SAS in Saturday’s Junior American Legion tourney

The Senior (AAA) American Legion Spokane Valley Cannons saw their baseball season come to an end. But for Junior (AA) teams Spokane Athletic Supply (Central Valley) and East Valley, the season goes on this weekend in Spokane.

East Valley opens the 16-team double elimination Junior American Legion state tournament against the Kennewick Bandits Saturday at 10:30 a.m. at Shadle Park’s Al K. Jackson Field.

SAS closes out the Saturday session at Central Valley against the Kennewick Dusters. Game time is the second of a doubleheader that begins at 2:30 p.m.

Each site will have four games a day on Saturday and Sunday. The tourney continues Monday, Tuesday and, if necessary, Wednesday, and concludes next Thursday with the champions of each division playing for the state title.

EV is in a field of eight teams at Shadle that includes River Ridge, Hamer Electric of Longview, the Kent Sox, Centralia, Everett and Mead.

The other six teams at CV are Shadle Park, Burlington, Capital, Vancouver Trojans, Kentridge and Stanwood.

Spokane Athletic Supply finished second in the league championship series last week, losing 9-8 to Shadle for the title.

SAS rallied from a one-game deficit in its South Division championship series with East Valley for a pair of one-run victories, 8-7 and 12-11, after losing 13-5.

Kris Henderson carried the big stick (and arm) with nine hits in the final three games, including two home runs and two doubles. He accounted for a quarter of the team’s offense and was involved in all three decisions as pitcher.

Henderson won both games over EV in relief to run his season record to 8-2 before losing in relief, allowing two runs in the seventh inning of the game against Shadle.

Brady Black had six hits and Kyle Renz five, including two doubles and a triple.

EV’s Brice Parker had seven hits in the final two games of the series against CV, Mark Lengyel added four hits, two of them doubles, and Bryce Hoekema also hit two doubles during the losing cause.

The Cannons reached the Senior playoff finals but could not handle the Pullman Patriots, who won 13-3 in their opener and 10-0 in the game that qualified them to this weekend’s state tourney in Yakima.

In between the Cannons eliminated the North Stars 5-2, and Bandits 10-5 in a game that featured seven doubles and a home run by the victors.

Tyler Hauschild had five hits in four games, four of them doubles. Three of those came against the Bandits. Chad Bucher and Mike Marlow each had four hits and homered and doubled during the series.

The regular season champion Bandits had beaten the North Stars before losing 7-5 to the Patriots and to the Cannons to end their season. Casey VanSickle hit safely in two of the games.

Stealth track at nationals

Fifteen Spokane Valley Stealth Track Club members are currently in Eugene, Ore., for the National Junior Olympics track and field championships.

Among them are two relay teams, the young men’s (17-18) and intermediate boys (15-16) 400 relays.

The older team includes Cameron Severns, Miles Massong, Patrick Garrett and Tasheen Garry. Intermediate team members are Nicholas Severns, Kiel Bowers, James Adams and Conner Janhunen.

Matthew Fry, age 10, advanced in two events, the shot put and turbo javelin.

Also qualifying for nationals were intermediate girls shot putter Samantha Damiano and Gianna Damiano, 10, in the turbo javelin.

In youth girls (13-14) Melissa Mauro in the high jump and 100 hurdles jumped 5-foot-3 and ran 15.82 electronically timed to qualify. Morgan Dunning qualified in the pole vault and triple jump, Evie Baker in the shot put, and Tara Lucas in the javelin with an Inland Northwest record 92-4.

Valleyites help Extreme

Spokane Valley softball players helped the Spokane Extreme to victory during last weekend’s ASA 18 B Western Regionals in Salem, Ore.

University graduate Christine Shollenberger, Central Valley’s Katee Nauert and Freeman’s Melissa Triber were part of a team that won five of six games, including two of three over Northwest Wildfire, out of Coeur d’Alene and Spokane, for the championship.

Shollenberger had doubles during wins over Vancouver XXXecution and Northwest Wildfire and she scored twice and drove in a run during the eight-inning title win, 5-3 over the Wildfire.

She also was involved in a defensive putout at home on an attempted score in the extra inning.

Nauert also scored two runs in the title game.

On Saturday, Extreme beat the Canby Wildcats 2-0, Oregon City Nightmare 2-1 and XXXecution 7-2 to join Wildfire as the only two remaining unbeaten tourney teams.

After beating Wildfire 6-4 to reach the finals, the team lost 9-5 to Wildfire, forcing a second game for the championship.

In three games against Extreme, Morgan Thomsen, a West Valley graduate, had five hits, including three of her team’s four in the final game.