Bats ready
COULEE CITY – The Warriors are moving on to the 1B State Baseball tournament for the fifth-straight outing since 2017, earning a No. 4 seed and matching up against the winner of No. 5 Naselle and No. 12 Crosspoint on Saturday.
“I’m very proud,” ACH Head Coach Hunter Lee said. “With how many seniors we lost last year and how young our team is, it was pretty special to be able to go undefeated in the regular season and then get a top-four bid in the state tournament.”
ACH (16-1) finished the regular season with a 15-0 record but fell to DeSales 11-3 in the District 7/9 semifinals on Saturday. The Irish scored eight runs over the first two innings, six of which came in the second.
“DeSales just put the ball in play, we weren’t making enough plays behind our pitcher,” Lee said. “We had an error, and then it caused another error and a little bit of a snowball effect.”
The Warriors were able to respond with a 6-3 win over Wilbur-Creston-Keller in the third/fourth place game, where ACH scored all six of its runs in the bottom of the second inning.
“We’re very familiar with Wilbur because we play them in our league all the time, and we just told the guys to turn the page from the previous game,” Lee said. “They did, and we went out and beat them again.”
With earning a top-four seed in the tournament, ACH gets a bye and doesn’t play in the opening round on Saturday.
“It’s definitely a little bit different, because the way our schedule works is we play every game as a doubleheader,” Lee said. “Nothing’s really different, as for preparation, we played Naselle last year – they’re the ones that knocked us out of the state tournament and then went on to win it. We’re pretty familiar with them.”
The runner-up of the 2022 tournament was Crosspoint.
“Crosspoint, we know a little bit less about,” Lee said. “Still, they were in the state championship game last year. We know that whatever team we’re going to face is going to be a pretty good team. Everybody that’s still playing is pretty good.”
ACH is playing at Larson Playfied in Moses Lake for the second straight year – last year, the Warriors defeated Mount Vernon Christian 5-2 in the first round of regionals before falling 15-10 to Naselle in the state semifinals.
“We played there last year, we’re not unfamiliar with driving down there and playing in that field,” Lee said. “The biggest thing is that we only have to play one game on Saturday, that’s the thing I’m most excited about. It’s supposed to be mid-90s, we’re playing in the middle of the day and whoever we’re going to play has to play two games that day.”
If the Warriors defeat the winner of Naselle/Crosspoint on Saturday, they’ll go on to face DeSales next Friday in the 1B semifinals.
“We’ve been pretty good defensively all year, we thought we were a pretty good defensive team, and then we made six errors against DeSales,” Lee said. “That’s been a huge focus of our practice this week. Being able to see a team like (DeSales), and to see what it’s going to take to potentially win a state championship, was a good experience for us.”
First pitch between the Warriors and their yet-to-be-determined opponent is on Saturday at 3 p.m. at Larson Playfields in Moses Lake. Naselle and Crosspoint play their game at 12 p.m. at Larson Playfields.
Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com. Submit photos of athletic events to him at that address for possible publication.
