A chess match between two highly-ranked prospects Friday highlighted the expertise on show on the Baseballism PNW Kickoff Basic.
Mount Vernon and Battle Floor confronted off within the Robert Ramsey Bracket at Mountain View Excessive College, which included a matchup between Mount Vernon’s Xavier Neyens and Battle Floor’s James Gill III.
Neyens, who’s at present the ninth-ranked prospect within the 2025 Draft, based on MLB.com, blasted a double to the wall on simply the second pitch of the sport towards Gill.
The Tigers’ junior, the No. 4-ranked participant within the Class of 2026, was fast to regulate to the highly effective lefty hitter by placing Neyens out in his subsequent at-bat.
Gill threw 4 scoreless innings with eight strikeouts, no walks and three hits allowed earlier than Mount Vernon, the Class 3A state runner-up, held on for a 4-3 win in additional innings.
The sport was one in every of many intriguing storylines amongst 24 Washington groups taking part in within the match throughout 4 websites in Clark County March 20-22.
In between video games Thursday on the Ridgefield Outside Recreation Complicated, match organizer Jason Castro stated they might ideally like so as to add groups from neighboring states Oregon and Idaho, giving the match extra regional attraction like Portland’s Les Schwab Invitational for basketball.
This 12 months’s discipline featured 13 Washington groups that performed within the state tournaments between 4A and 1A, highlighted by native groups Battle Floor, La Heart, Ridgefield and Columbia River, the 2A defending state champion.
It additionally had 9 gamers dedicated Division I packages, together with Neyens (Oregon State), Gill (Washington) and Columbia River senior left-handed pitcher Harrison Hoffarth (Seattle College).
Different thrillers
The primary Kickoff Basic featured a number of walk-off wins and extra-inning thrillers.
To succeed in the championship sport of the Richie Sexson Bracket at Ridgefield, the Ridgefield Spudders needed to rally from a 3-0 deficit within the seventh inning towards Fife within the semifinals.
“We were struggling to make adjustments,” Ridgefield coach Nick Allen stated. “But then in the seventh, just all of sudden, boom-boom, we tie the thing up, go to the eighth and win it in the bottom of the eighth.”
Two singles, a success batsmen and a stroll bought the Spudders their first run.
Caleb Tortora’s sacrifice fly to left scored Lewis with the second run.
Jack Curtis tagged at second and went to 3rd, and the Trojans’ throw to 3rd bought away, permitting Curtis to attain the tying run.
Fife put two on with one out within the eighth, however the rally ended when Tortora threw out a runner on the plate attempting to attain on a sacrifice fly.
Wikstrom’s RBI single within the backside of the eighth scored Wyatt Hemmelman with the successful run.
“It was a fun game,” Allen stated. “Fife is a good team, loaded with seniors. It was a great high school baseball game.”
Battle Floor scored 4 runs within the prime of the eighth inning to beat Tahoma 7-3 on Saturday within the Robert Ramsey Bracket at Mountain View.
Ethan Scott scored within the backside of the eighth when an try and catch him stealing third was mishandled, permitting Scott to attain the successful run for Heritage in a 4-3 win over Hudson’s Bay within the Randy Myers Bracket at Heritage.
Wild race at Wildcat Relays
The Wildcat Relays monitor and discipline meet at La Heart on Friday featured a wild race within the boys 4,000-meter distance medley.
A Battle Floor crew that includes Devontae Kephart, Trent Richardson, Zachary Zamora and Lord King Nana-Badu-Weah completed in a useless warmth for first place with a La Heart squad of Riley Sypher, Jaxson Potts, Lou Kissinger and Carson Vann.
Each groups completed in 10 minutes, 59.56 seconds.
Prairie completed third within the race, lower than 0.4 seconds behind the winners in 10:59.85.
Key occasions this week
The Hockinson boys soccer crew, contemporary off a 2-0 win over R.A. Lengthy on Friday, will get the possibility to face alone atop the 2A Higher St. Helens League when the Hawks host Columbia River on Tuesday.
Columbia-White Salmon and Seton Catholic, two groups that battled for the 1A district title final 12 months in boys soccer, will meet in a Trico League match Wednesday at Seton Catholic
