Pirates Shock Ducks, Head for 2B Title Game

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Thad Nelson called it a magical ride. That it may be, and it’ll go to the end of the line.

Nelson’s Adna baseball team pulled off one of the shocks of the postseason Friday, upsetting No. 2 Toutle Lake 5-1 at Johnson-O’Brien Stadium in Ephrata to keep its title hopes alive into the final day of the spring.

“I can’t talk enough about how these boys play as a team and play for each other,” Nelson said. “(Tristan) Percival was as good as always… and we played great defense behind him.”

It was the fourth meeting between the Ducks and the Pirates this year. In the regular-season series, Toutle Lake came away with two shutout wins, giving up a combined two hits in 14 innings. In the rematch in the district tournament, Adna struck for three runs in the first inning before the Ducks roared and rolled to a 15-5 win in five innings.

Friday, from the start, was different.

“It’s been a stair-step,” Nelson said. “The first couple, I think we were a bit in awe. We played them again and we actually got some runs off of (Connor) Cox, which I think gave us a bit of confidence; we knew we could hit him then. Then today, I think we took momentum from the first inning and never relinquished it.”

Luke Mohney and Danner Hoinowski led off the bottom of the first with back-to-back singles, and a groundout brought a run home. Tristan Percival put up his second zero on the hill, and the Adna bats went back to work in the second, with Avery Manning coming in to score with two outs on a wild pitch.

That’s where Adna stood until the fifth — after Toutle scratched a run back — when Asher Guerrero came up with the biggest hit of the day, driving in a pair on a two-out, 2-RBI single that made it 4-1.

“We just kept the pressure on them,” Nelson said. “At 2-1, you’re a little nervous. You get to 4-1, 5-1, it’s not like you can relax, but you feel a little better.”

Adna added its fifth run the next inning on Mohney’s second knock of the day.

Mohney finished 2 for 3 with an RBI and a pair of runs scored at the top of the order. In the No. 2 slot, Hoinowski had a pair of hits. Behind him, Percival was 1 for 2 with a walk, an RBI, and a run scored.

But Percival’s biggest impact came on the hill, where the Adna ace capped off his season with yet another dominant outing.

The junior gave up one unearned run in the third, holding Toutle Lake to just five hits, and didn’t walk anybody.

“He just grunted it out. He may not have had his best stuff, but boy was he effective,” Nelson said. “He put us in that position to get us into the championship game.”

Percival started four games in the postseason for the Pirates and either tossed a complete game or got within an out in all four. His ERA was easy to calculate: 0.00.

Now, Adna is into the 2B state title game for the first time since 2015 — the year the Pirates last won it all. They’ll take on either Brewster or Tri-Cities Prep, who were dueling it out in the later semifinal.