Royal baseball gains berth in state tournament

ROYAL CITY - After a long week of baseball, Royal High School has qualified for the state tournament, which starts Saturday at 10 a.m. in Wenatchee against Cashmere.

Royal lost a season opener by a close 3-2 margin to the Bulldogs. Since then, the Bulldogs have gone on to the No. 2 ranking the state.

"We are excited to have reached our team goal of making the state tourney," coach Daren Christensen said.

Tuesday Royal lost to La Salle 8-7. One bad inning with several errors led to six LaSalle runs.

Friday Royal hosted Connell and came away with a 7-4 victory. The Knights had a one run lead going into the fifth and scored two more runs. Then in the sixth, the Knights tacked on four.

Brady Dixon had a great day at the plate, going 2-for-2 with three runs batted in. Danny Vermeer had another big day, batting 3-3 and scoring three times.

Tanner Whitaker hit his second home run against Connell this season to tack on some important runs late in the game. Kent Christensen pitched a complete game, striking out seven.

Saturday morning at Pasco Royal edged No. 7-ranked Goldendale in a state qualification game, 3-2. It ended on an unusual play when a batted ball hit a Goldendale runner for the final out.

All of Royal's scoring came in the second inning. Zach Christensen led off with a single followed by another single by Tanner Whitaker. Kent Christensen followed with a hard shot to second that scored Zach, then Reed Lefler had a clutch hit to score two more runs.

Ace pitcher Danny Vermeer kept the Wolves off balance, changing speed and location.

On the play that ended the game, second baseman Anthony Westcott was charging the ball to make a play. It looked like there was going to be a base hit to tie the score.

Then the ball hit the runner advancing to second. This was an out, and the game was over.

Royal had qualified for the state tournament, which it hadn't been done in almost a decade.