Knights fall just shy of state berth

Although the 3A regional baseball championship featured a pair of GSL teams, both participants, West Valley and North Central, had already qualified for the state tournament.

Even though WV prevailed in a tense 3-2, eight-inning game, the day’s dramatics were saved for a team coming in with a record less than .500.

By the time East Valley’s first game started, the Knights knew they would need to beat West Valley-Yakima (once ranked second in the state this year) and Selah (a state participant in nine of the last 10 tournaments) to earn the region’s third state berth.

EV nearly did it.

After upsetting WV-Yakima 7-2 in their opener, the Knights (10-11) lost a five-run lead and almost rallied in the seventh, falling short 12-11 against Selah.

So, the first round of the state tournament Saturday will feature NC (11-10) against District 2’s No. 1 seed at 10 a.m. at Yakima County Stadium. Following that will be Selah (14-9) against WV (17-5), with the winner playing at 4 p.m. to advance to the state semifinals.

Selah 12, East Valley 11: EV was six outs from the state tournament, leading the Vikings 9-6 after five innings.

In the bottom of the sixth, though, Selah broke through for six runs against the Knights’ relief staff, with the big blow a go-ahead two-run double by Jake Zeutenhorst.

Even then, EV wasn’t done.

Ryan Campbell singled in a pair of runs to cut the lead to one, but he’d finish the game stranded at third base.

“Like I told these guys, we weren’t sure we could beat West Valley-Yakima,” EV head coach John Phelan said. “Now, we came out, played a nice game and beat them pretty handily. Then, we played five nice innings against these guys, too, and had them whipped, and I don’t think we necessarily let off the gas pedal, but we didn’t execute.”

That six-run sixth for the Vikings included a leadoff walk, a hit batter, a two-base error on a single and a misplayed sacrifice bunt.

West Valley 3, North Central 2 (8): After making the third out of the bottom of the seventh on a caught steal of home, the Eagles were threatening to give away another scoring chance in the eighth.

WV loaded the bases with nobody out against Indians starter Brett Richardson (0-4), but a blown squeeze attempt and a strikeout left them with second and third and two outs.

Sophomore cleanup hitter Bryan Peterson came through, though, dumping a single into left field for the game-winner.

“The win or the loss isn’t important, I think, it’s just how we play,” said WV coach Don O’Neal. “We’ve got some skeletons in our closet we’ve got to take care of and we’ve been up and down all year. We hadn’t shown that we could come out and play back-to-back hard games.”

Greg Bradley (6-2) picked up the win in relief of Alex Stanley.

After Bradley and NC’s Ryan Swanson, each team’s ace, picked up state-clinching wins Tuesday, both teams thought getting good starts from other starters was positive going into next weekend, where they’ll need two wins.

East Valley 7, West Valley-Yakima 2: Gerry Kelley shut down the Rams (17-5) and sophomore pinch hitter Skyler Schiller provided the big hit, a two-run sixth-inning single to put the Knights up 3-1.