River Ridge pulls repeat in 2A baseball district

CHEHALIS – Just call them the district champions.

Again.

Coming into this week’s Class 2A Southwest District IV baseball tournament, few people gave the River Ridge Hawks a chance to accomplish what they did last season – win the district title. Instead, the focus was on the teams seeded ahead of them – Chehalis and Centralia.

River Ridge slid down the Evergreen Conference standings and settled for third place and the No. 3 seed following what coach Chad Arko called a three-week slump during the regular season.

But that didn’t deter his players from achieving what they’ve been capable of all along.

River Ridge capped its magical run in the district tournament by clinching its second consecutive district title with a 10-8 win over the Centralia Tigers on Friday at Bearcats Baseball Stadium at Chehalis High School.

As the No. 1 seed from District IV, River Ridge (15-7) will open regional play close to home at Yelm High School at 1 p.m. May 23. Centralia, the No. 2 seed, will travel to Bellingham.

“Bringing the trophy back home is what we wanted to do,” senior center fielder Stephan Negron said. “People looked down on us because of our season. We looked more at ourselves because it was the postseason.”

Thursday night, River Ridge clinched a regional berth with its epic 7-6, nine-inning win over previously unbeaten Chehalis. The Hawks were down 6-5 going into the bottom of the ninth when Emil Swartling hit a two-run double, driving in Jon Matos to score the winning run. Chehalis had given up 10 runs all season before giving up seven to River Ridge.

Because of rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, Centralia (16-6) had to play its opening-round and semifinal games Thursday. By the time the Tigers left the field after their 5-1 win over Hockinson and 9-7, extra-inning win over Mark Morris, it was nearly 11 p.m.

Because the Tigers played two games Thursday, Centralia coach Jon Rooklidge had no choice but to use two junior varsity pitchers - freshmen Mason Musselman and Cole Housden - in Friday’s title game. The Tigers also were without pitcher and No. 3 hitter Andrew Pullin, a freshman who sustained a concussion Thursday.

“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