The Napavine baseball team needed to win two on Friday to get to the district semifinals, and the Tigers did just that by topping Rainier 13-0 in five and beating Forks 8-1 in the quarterfinals.
The first-round matchup, a loser-out game, Napavine (18-3) jumped on top of Rainier early, scoring three in the first before adding three more across the second and third.
A seven-run fourth was more than enough to put the game into run-rule territory, and Ashton Demarest finished off the five-inning shutout to end it. He allowed three hits, walked two, and struck out four.
Conner Holmes went 3 for 4 with a double and two runs batted in, while Hudson Chambers went a perfect 3 for 3 and scored twice. Cal Bullock also scored twice, and he collected two hits and stole a base.
Johnny Boesch, Dayton Gardner, and Ryder Cruse tallied Rainier’s three hits. The Mountaineers finish their season 7-13, and Cruse, Boesch, and Jared Sprouffske are set to graduate.
A similar formula worked for the Tigers in their quarterfinal against Forks, the No. 2 team from the P2BL.
Napavine took a 2-0 lead in the first and slowly added on throughout the remainder of the game, first tacking on runs in the second, fourth, and fifth before adding three insurance runs in the seventh.
Bullock pitched the first five innings and allowed just three hits and a run, and Chambers threw two shutout innings out of the pen.
Holmes had another three hits at the plate, including a triple, and he drove in three, while Jack Nelson went 2 for 3 with a double and two RBIs. Grady Wilson collected two hits, and he drove in a run.
Next up for Napavine is a district semifinal against Adna, where a win would put them through to the state tournament and into the district championship game.
The Tigers’ season wouldn’t be over with a loss, but they would need to beat the winner of the PWV-Toledo elimination game to clinch a state berth and advance to the district third/fourth game.
Their semifinal against Adna is set for Monday at Adna.
