ACH baseball wins league title, softball in finals
ACH baseball wins league title, softball in finals
RIVERSIDE - The Almira/Coulee-Hartline Warriors got their post season jump started just fine.
Tuesday at Riverside high school, the Warriors tuned up for a run for a second consecutive Class 1B state title with another District 7 crown by virtue of their 3-2 win over Curlew.
ACH (18-1) won what ultimately became a battle between two top dogs on the pitching mound, the Warriors' Jacob Olmstead and Curlew's Tanner Somday.
The Warriors got on the board first with a sole run in the bottom of the first inning after Brandon Boutain singled to lead the game off and would ultimately find his way off for the 1-0 lead.
Somday would give Curlew (13-5) the edge with a two-run home run in the top half of the fourth inning. In the interim he did a fine job keeping the usually explosive ACH offense in knots.
"Somday did a good job of shutting down our bats," ACH head coach Stuart Gloyn said. "But Olmstead met him pitch for pitch, inning for inning."
It was Olmstead's ability to keep ACH within striking range that would ultimately pay off.
Daniel Hardy would bring home Tucker Matthewson with an RBI single to tie the game at 2-2 in the sixth, Matthewson was running for Olmstead who reached base on an error.
Then in the top of the seventh, Drew Isaak singled to start the at bat and found his way home when Brandon Boutain reached on an infield hit and a 3-2 ACH win.
Olmstead finished with nine strikeouts while scattering four hits. Curlew ended up with five errors while ACH's defense was error-free,
"I was very happy with Olmstead's approach on the mound and command of his pitches, except for one pitch, he kept the Curlew hitters off-balance all day," Gloyn said. "Our defense was very solid. Brandon snagged two deep shots to left-center and the infield played error-free ball."
The Warriors advanced to Friday's sub-district playoff game against either Odessa or Colton. Both teams in that game advance to the district championship at University High on Monday.
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