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River Ridge pulls repeat in 2A baseball district

PREP BASEBALL: Hawks top Centralia, 10-8, for second straight crown

By Meg Wochnick | The Olympian • Published May 16, 2009

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“I was just really proud of the way the kids played,” Rooklidge said. “We got down right away, but clawed our way back. A lot of teams would’ve buckled (if they were) down 9-1, and we did not.”

River Ridge scored nine runs during the first three innings, including a five-run third that was capped by Negron’s grand slam to give the Hawks a 9-1 lead.

River Ridge sent eight batters to the plate in the first inning, scoring three runs on four hits, and followed that in the second inning with one run on back-to-back doubles.

Josh Rood’s single in the top of the third loaded the bases for Negron, who already had two doubles in his first two at-bats. Negron connected on a 2-1 fastball that cleared the left-center field fence for the grand slam. He finished the day 3-for-4 with five RBI.

“I didn’t think it was a home run,” Negron said. “That at-bat, I thought I hit it off the end of my bat. I didn’t think it was gone.”

Centralia’s comeback started in the fourth, when it scored two runs. Housden’s single to right field scored Christian Cabrera from third base to make it 9-3.

River Ridge's starting pitcher, Jon Matos, gave up three consecutive walks during the fourth inning, then allowed two straight singles to start the fifth and was replaced by Steven Schoonover.

Matos went four-plus innings, giving up four runs on seven hits. He also struck out two.

The Tigers scored two runs in each of the fourth, fifth and seventh innings, and River Ridge didn’t score again until a run made it 10-7 in the seventh.

Centralia was close to tying the game at 10-all in the bottom of the seventh. Catcher Devon Hughes, who hit a walk-off home run in the Tigers’ win over Mark Morris, hit a towering shot to left that Rooklidge called “a foot” from leaving the park. Instead, it bounced off the wall for a double that scored Housden.

“The fourth inning on, we stopped competing a bit,” Arko said. “That one run (in the seventh) was pretty important.

“They responded like I expected them to,” Arko added. “This is the winningest group in River Ridge history.”

Meg Wochnick: 360-754-5443 mwochnick@theolympian.com