Central Kitsap clinches return trip to state with 10-5 win over Auburn Mountainview

Coach Bill Baxter and the Central Kitsap baseball team can relax.

At least for one more week.

The Cougars clinched their second consecutive appearance in the 3A state baseball tournament with their 10-5 victory over Auburn Mountainview in the 3A West Central/Southwest bidistrict tournament on Saturday at Heidelberg Park in Tacoma.

Central Kitsap next plays (winner of Sumner-Columbia River) in the bidistrict semifinals at 10 a.m. Saturday at Auburn Riverside High School and secured a seed no worse than No. 4 from the district to the state tournament.

Not that there were doubts the Cougars would get back after reaching the state semifinals for the first time in school history last year.

“It’s always big because baseball — it’s a funny game,” Baxter said. “One bad inning, one bad sequence here or there and it’s over.

“Now we know we can relax a little bit.”

The back-to-back 3A Narrows champions improved to 20-2. And there isn’t a high school pitcher around who wants to face this batting order.

University of Washington signee Nick Roberts was 4-for-4 with a triple and three RBIs, and four other Central Kitsap batters had at least two hits. The Cougars had 15 total against an Auburn Mountainview team coming off its own state tournament appearance.

This after Central Kitsap beat Peninsula, 12-2, in six innings earlier in the day to reach the winner-to-state matchup.

“We swung it really well today,” Baxter said.

“We play solid defense, our pitchers throw strikes and we get timely hitting. We don’t have a guy throwing 95 miles per hour. We don’t have guys hitting 15 home runs. But we’re consistent. We’re just consistent and we play well together and we have fun.”

Auburn Mountainview scored the first two runs of the game before Central Kitsap pounced for five runs in the bottom of the first inning.

It was 6-5 when the Cougars scored four more in the bottom of the sixth inning, setting up an undramatic finish after starter Matthew Vessey gave way to Aki Buckson, who closed out the victory.

Griffin McCormick, a Bellevue College signee, earned the win for Central Kitsap in the opener.

Auburn Mountainview (12-9) can still clinch a repeat trip to state.

It rallied late to beat North Thurston, 4-3, in its first game Saturday, but with the loss to Central Kitsap the Lions next play Prairie — which ended Capital’s season with a 4-3 nine-inning victory — at 4 p.m. Wednesday in a loser-out game at Auburn High School.

CLASS 2A

Fife 6, Olympic 5: Shane Nixon called the old walk-off bunt play.

Jalen Cope’s bunt down the first baseline scored Davis Bottemiller from third base with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh inning to clinch the Trojans their fifth consecutive trip to the 2A state tournament.

Olympic could have been out of the inning on a double play, but its shortstop didn’t touch second base and his bad footwork caused him to be late on a throw to first base with one out.

That loaded the bases for Cope.

Fife (19-2) advances to play Liberty of Issaquah in the 2A West Central/SeaKing bidistrict semifinals at 1 p.m. Saturday at Kitsap County Fairgrounds in Silverdale.

River Ridge 10, Orting 7: The Hawks broke open a 2-2 game with eight runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to beat the Cardinals at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds and clinch a trip to the 2A state tournament — the program’s fifth trip in school history and first since 2010.

River Ridge (11-11) beat Lindbergh, 6-1, earlier in the day as the Hawks

advance to the 2A West Central/SeaKing bidistrict semifinals at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Kitsap County Fairgrounds.

CLASS 1A

Cascade Christian 2, Chimacum 0: Tyler Fox threw a one-hitter to lift the Cougars to an elimination-game victory and the the 1A West Central District semifinals to play Coupeville at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Curtis High School.

Fox struck out 11 and walked none. The only hit he allowed was a double to lead off the top of the fifth inning, though the batter was thrown out at third trying to stretch it into a triple.

Chad Adams drove in Cascade Christian’s lone two runs with a two-RBI single in the bottom of the third.

This story was originally published May 7, 2016 at 9:43 PM with the headline "Central Kitsap clinches return trip to state with 10-5 win over Auburn Mountainview."