2A Baseball: Bearcats Edge Tigers in Final Regular Season Rivalry Game

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For the second time this season, Jacob Cleary and Riley Christensen each pitched well enough to beat their crosstown rivals.

And for the second time this season, Cleary’s team provided him enough backup to add a ‘W’ to the end of his pitching line.

W.F. West made the most its six hits on Monday in Chehalis and edged rival Centralia, 4-2, in both teams’ Evergreen 2A Conference finale.

Both teams’ playoff situations had already been sealed, leaving nothing but bragging rights and postseason momentum up for grabs.

“It’s not for league or anything, but we needed to know that we can beat Centralia — our crosstown rival — three out of three times,” Cleary said. “They shouldn’t beat us.”

Christensen was the losing pitcher the first time the teams met, with W.F. West dinging him for all of one hit in a 1-0 win. Monday’s affair wasn’t quite as much of a pitcher’s duel, but the hurlers’ lines were equally impressive: Cleary worked seven innings, gave up six hits and two earned runs, hit a batter, walked none and struck out six; Christensen worked six innings, gave up six hits and one earned run, walked one and didn’t fan — or hit — a batter.

“Both guys, really, threw a lot of strikes, and both guys pitched well enough, probably, to win,” Bearcat coach Bryan Bullock said. “But defensively, we know that’s our recipe — no errors, and limiting our free passes.”

Centralia’s runs came in the first, on a hit by Christensen and an RBI single from Nolan Wasson, and in the second, on a bunt single from Cody Parker and an RBI single from Christensen. Cleary then settled in, facing just 17 batters over the final five innings.

W.F. West scored two in the first, with an error, a single by Tyson Guerrero, an RBI ground ball from Dakota Hawkins and an RBI single from Hayden Dobyns. Kolby Steen’s sacrifice fly plated a run in the fourth, and with two outs in the sixth Steen was ruled safe at first — with a run scoring — when the first-baseman pulled his foot off the bag early. “(Christensen) threw very well, again, and the one thing I will say, is our pitching has been better than average all year,” Tiger coach Rex Ashmore said. “The guys that have got up there have thrown strikes, and they trust their defense to make plays. And more times than not, lately, we’re just not making plays.”



The loss was the ninth in the last 11 games for Centralia, the defending State 2A champion. Regardless, the Tigers (9-10, 4-5 league) wrap up the regular season with a nonleague game at Fort Vancouver on Wednesday and will head to the District 4 tournament as the No. 2 seed out of the EvCo. They’ll host the Greater St. Helens 2A League’s third-place team on May 10 at 4:30 p.m. in the first round of the district tournament.

“We have not played well for a while, and hopefully we get back to it next week,” Ashmore said. “Our record won’t be pretty going in, but nobody cares what you do in the regular season if you find a way to get out.”

Cody Parker went 3 for 3 for the Tigers, while Christensen was 2 for 4.

The Bearcats’ six hits were spread evenly across the three innings in which they scored. Dobyns and designated hitter Tyler Pallas each had two hits.

Bullock said his team had an extra edge with bragging rights on the line.

“But I’d also like to think that we’re trying to build something towards the playoffs,” he said. “As a coaching staff, we’re sending the message that where we’re at is great, but it’s not enough.”

W.F. West (13-5, 8-1 league) hosts Columbia River in a nonleague game on Wednesday to conclude the regular season. The Bearcats open district tournament play on May 10, in Chehalis, against the No. 4 team from the GSHL.

Notes: W.F. West senior shortstop Elijah Johnson, typically the team’s No. 2 hitter, sat out Monday’s game as a precaution to rest a hamstring injury. He’s expected to be back in the lineup for districts. … Centralia lost to Garfield, 9-0, on Saturday in a nonleague game at Cheney Stadium, home of the Tacoma Rainiers. The Tigers managed just two hits in the loss, with a single from Christian Peters and a double from Nolan Wasson. … Black Hills beat Tumwater, 12-2, on Monday to finish third in the four-team EvCo. Tumwater, last year’s District 4 champion, will host Aberdeen on Wednesday in a play-in game, with the winner advancing to face the Greater St. Helens 2A League’s fifth-place team in a winner-to-districts pigtail game.