YAKIMA — The Adna Manufacturing Company traded in the big swings for bunts and 60-foot sprints Saturday morning and went to work.
Going against one of the most dominant pitchers in the state, the Pirates pieced together rallies from nothing early to take a lead. Trying to get revenge against the team that beat them in the district title game last weekend, they manufactured insurance the same way. And after blowing a late lead just three outs away from the state title game, Adna manufactured one more rally to walk off 8-7 winners over Ocosta.
“I’m excited that we won,” Adna coach Bruce Pocklington said. “It was a little bit more exciting than we needed it to be.”
Down 7-6 going to the bottom of the seventh after the Wildcats struck for seven runs in the final two innings, Adna got back to the work it had been about all day. Ocosta’s Jessie Gilbert — who had shut the Pirates out in the district title game, with 66 strikeouts across four games in the district tournament — put Kendall Humphrey on base with a four-pitch walk.
Humphrey didn’t stay there long, stealing second on the first pitch to Ava Simms, and stealing third on the second.
That was part of the gameplan Pocklington and his staff had drawn up in the week since the loss at Fort Borst.
“We just threw that in, saying, ‘We’re going to steal second, and we’re going to steal third, and we’re going to bunt them in,’” He said. “So we just needed to get runners on; that was key today, and we did.”
Then game the second part of the scheme. After a host of fouled-off bunts last Saturday, the Pirates got work on the small ball, and it paid off. Ava Simms put down a perfect squeeze — her third of the day — and reached when nobody covered first, while Humphrey came in easily to tie the game up.
Courtesy runner Abby McCauley stole second — Adna’s 13 stolen base — came to third on another sacrifice, and scored with two outs on a wild pitch to win the game.
Simms earned the win in the circle, despite a rough spot in sixth. After five shutout innings, Ocosta began to time her up, and she was pulled for Karlee VonMoos in the middle of a four-inning frame. The next inning, VonMoos ran into trouble of her own, and Pocklington put Simms back in with the bases loaded, two outs, and the Pirates holding on to a one-run lead.
That lead immediately disappeared on a two-run single, but Simms limited the damage, and the Pirates did the rest on offense.
Now, Adna will make its return to the state title game for the third straight postseason, aiming to get back on the mountaintop after taking second in state last year.
“We’re not done yet,” Pocklington said. “They were trying to give me some hugs, and I said, ‘No, we’re not done, we’ve got one more to go.’”
