U-Hi wins tournament

Josh Nichols was not aware of the prolonged baseball drought his University team ended by scoring a come-from-behind victory over North Thurston in the title game of last week’s state American Legion A tournament in Mount Vernon.

“They told me afterward that it had been 40 years since a Spokane Legion team had won that tournament,” the coach said. “That makes this even more exciting. I had no idea it had been that long because we play some pretty good baseball here, but at the same time it’s difficult to go win a tournament on the other side of the state.

“A few years ago U-Hi had an A Legion team that went over there and made it to the championship game, and we’ve had successes at other levels.”

The University team was made up primarily of players off the U-Hi freshman baseball team. The squad finished the 16-and-under tournament with a 5-1 record, avenging a lone loss in the title game. To reach the finale with North Thurston, it needed to knock off third-place Central Valley earlier in the day.

Overall, University finished its season with a 33-8-1 record, winning its division with a 14-2 record before heading into a tournament run.

“These guys really were determined to prove themselves,” Nichols said. “Once we got over there, we were the No. 1 seed from Eastern Washington. The guys decided they wanted to prove to everyone that they were ‘The Beasts from the East.’ They kept saying that and I got a little tired of hearing it, but they did it.”

The team suffered from a few first-game jitters in the opener, the coach said, but then got them out of the way quickly.

“You go into the tournament a little blind, not knowing about the other teams entered,” he said. “We knew about Central Valley, of course, but we didn’t know anything about anyone else. You don’t really know what to expect.

“It’s not like the regular season, where you play the same teams over and over again and really get to know what to expect every time you play them.”

Success in tournament baseball is largely determined by pitching. Quality arms are needed to carry a team to a title, and University had five strong arms.

“We had a really strong group and they did a great job of keeping us in games,” Nichols said. “They pitched as well as they have all year long for us in the tournament. We were able to use just five guys in our six games.

“Landon Elliott, Justin Liu, Ian Craig-Scott, Kramer Lavoie and Cody Canaday all were solid. What was critical was that all of our starters went deep into games, so we were able to get guys rested between starts. Cody and Landon each started one game and each one pitched a complete game for us and went five innings in the other. Justin and Kramer each started a game for us and went deep.

“Ian Craig-Scott was our bullpen guy, our closer. He came in and pitched two innings in the championship game and did not allow a run to allow us to come back and win that game.”

Craig-Scott closed out the semifinal victory over Central Valley before being the stopper in the title game.

University was a No. 1 seed going into the tournament, and got off to a fast start, knocking off Burlington, 6-3, but dropped a 4-1 decision to North Thurston in its second game. The team regrouped to knock off hometown Mount Vernon, 5-4 and reached the championship game by blanking Central Valley, 4-0.

“North Thurston pitched tough against us in both games,” Nichols said. “We fell behind 5-1 in that game, and we were able to come back and score five runs in the final three innings to win it.”

Craig-Scott smacked a two-out, two-run double to put University ahead in the seventh inning of the championship game, making himself the winning pitcher and earning himself the tournament’s Most Valuable Player award.

“That was such a crucial hit for us,” Nichols said. “If he makes an out there, our season is over. It was that simple, and for him to come through like that was really exciting.”