Warden takes district title

Jorge Reyes pitches three shutout innings in win

Columbia-Burbank upset Cle Elum to get to the championship round on Saturday, then almost upset Warden for the SCAC district title.

The Cougars' baseball team came-from-behind to defeat the Coyotes 7-5 in Saturday's SCAC championship game, handing Warden the district title at Larson Field in Moses Lake on Saturday night. Jorge Reyes took the mound in the bottom of the fifth to shutdown Columbia Burbank's batting arsenal, enabling Warden to come-from-behind in the victory.

Reyes went three innings, faced nine batters and struck out three in the process.

"Jorge is solid and we know Jorge is solid and we got to a point where we needed to shut them down and we rode Jorge to the end," Warden head coach Jerry Powell said.

Reyes came in with a 5-4 deficit and struck out two of the first three batters faced and opened the door for the Warden offense to step up in the top of the sixth inning.

"It felt like I had to go in and keep this team alive," Reyes said.

Powell called it a well fought battle that showed his team had what it takes to make a comeback. The Coyotes took three separate leads in the game before Warden finished it off, while Craig Gradin slowed the Cougars' dominant bats.

Gradin went 6 2/3 innings with five strike outs and allowed seven hits and six earned runs in the loss.

"They came to play," Powell said. "They were ready and we needed a game like this. There wasn't anything we did wrong or they did better, just a well played game."

Gradin started the game with a 1-2-3 inning, then came up in the bottom of the first and hit an RBI triple off Roly Rodriguez to put the Coyotes up 1-0 in the game. Gradin later scored in the inning off a wild pitch.

Cougars tied the game up at 2-2 with an RBI double from Rey Garza and an RBI single by Andrew Garza. Rey Garza finished the game 2-for-4 with two doubles and two RBIs for Warden.

Edward Rodriguez opened the third inning with a triple to deep left-center field and scored on a sacrifice bunt by Tommy Guerra to hand the Cougars its first lead of the game. But Gradin tied the game up in the bottom of the inning with a sacrifice fly ball to right field to score Nathan Engberg and Andy Brown gave the Coyotes the lead with a bloop double down the right field line to score Brandon Berg.

Rey Garza started the top of the fourth inning with a double and scored on a shortstop error to tie the game at 4-4. Columbia-Burbank got one more run off Roly Rodriguez in the bottom of the fourth after David Rose scored on an error by the catcher for the 5-4 lead.

Rodriguez did not return to pitch the fifth inning.

"Roly struggled a little bit with control and I think emotion overcame him a little bit today," Powell said.

Reyes shutdown the Coyotes in the final three innings, while Edward Rodriguez tied the game at 5-5 with an RBI triple, his second of the game, to left field. Roly drove Edward home for the final Cougar lead of the game with a single to left field. Reyes drove in an insurance run in the top of the seventh for the final run of the game, handing the Cougars a 7-5 win.

Powell said Warden was going to be out-pitched or out-hit, but did get a little nervous after trailing three different times in the game.

"I never really got nervous," Powell added. "They aren't going to out pitch us or out hit us, anxious - yes."