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NAPAVINE — Baseball is meant to break you.
Its purpose is to highlight failure, fair or not. A little white circular ball determines the fate of individuals, ranging from Kindergarten kids to 40-year old grown men. There’s euphoria, broken dreams and crushed hearts.
The latter two emotions have been what’s happened in the Class 2B District 4 semifinal round to the Napavine High School baseball team. In 2024, Adna walked off the Tigers and triumphed 10-9. Then last year – on their home diamond – Ilwaco pushed across the winning run in the bottom of the eighth to claim a 5-4 victory.
Two bites at the apple were unsuccessful. Tuesday marked the third chance to break the barrier once and for all. And once again, there was a walk-off.
Just an early one.
Napavine executed its small ball to near perfection and earned contributions up and down the roster to give the C2BL’s No. 1 seed a dominant 12-2 victory in six innings over Toutle Lake to put itself back in the district championship game for the first time in four years.
“This is great, I love it here,” junior infielder Tommy Deebach said. “We’re peaking at the right time (and) everything is going good.”
For the five-member senior class, they get the chance to cap their prep careers the same way it started. It was in 2022 when the Tigers (20-2) won four straight and upended the Ducks by a run to win the district title.
They were eighth graders then. Now, they get their biggest rival in Adna on Saturday night at Wheeler Field to be the cream of the crop in District 4. First pitch is scheduled for 5 p.m.
“For them to keep battling and to get back is great,” Napavine head coach Brian Demarest said. “We challenged them at spring break, our season is going to be defined by how you guys come back. When they came back, they were on a mission.”
Those semifinal games of seeing it be so close, yet so far away, didn’t dampen either season in its entirety. Napavine still made the state tournament both times through the elimination side of the bracket.
Still, the bitter taste lingered. It is one of the reasons the Tigers have seemingly destroyed every opponent in their path. Tuesday marked the 18th time they’ve won by double figures.
"We've been working on a good two-strike approach,” Deebach said.
Deebach set the tone on defense and offense against Toutle Lake (17-6).
Easton White, one of the premier hitters in the C2BL this spring, ripped a laser to third that Deebach scooped up and fired to first to finish a 1-2-3 top of the first. In the second, he poked an RBI single to center for the game’s first run.
It’s been a mixture for Deebach, also a state wrestling medalist, for which defensive position he calls home. He’s played first, second and third base the last two years. He had a couple other quick reaction plays to silence Toutle’s bats.
“I knew that guy would smoke the ball, but I was sitting on it; got a little lucky,” Deebach said. “I feel like being a swiss army knife and doing whatever the team needs.”
“He’s gotten a lot better,” Demarest added. “He’s gained a lot of skill.”
Already in front 2-0, Napavine broke the game open in the fourth.
It loaded the bases on three straight singles, but a double play paused the rally briefly. A run still scored and Beckett Landram’s RBI base hit made it 4-0. Two walks later and the Tigers re-loaded the bases.
A pair of wild pitches, Grady Wilson’s RBI knock and an error capped the six-run frame. Hudson Chambers drove in two in the fifth and Landram’s sac fly in foul territory ended the game early. Deebach and Carter Edmonds also laid down nearly perfect bunts down the third base line.
And on the bump, Cal Bullock went the full six innings with four strikeouts and worked around six Toutle Lake hits.
“Without a doubt,” Demarest said when asked if it was one of the better team wins of the season. “Everybody played a role. It was awesome, just unselfish baseball.”
“It is definitely in the top-three,” Deebach stated when asked the same.
What stands in the Tigers way of some hardware coming back home is their arch rival. They split the regular season meetings and in Demarest’s eyes, Saturday will have more than first place up for grabs.
“I think whoever wins this game has the argument for the No. 1 overall (seed),” he said. “There’s about eight teams across the state, depending on the situation, that can win it all.”
Deebach has seen this group be more together not only since that Adna loss, but go back to March 21 when Napavine whipped Cle Elum-Roslyn 14-5. That was the first moment he could see potential for a long run into May.
Nothing that’s happened since has kept him from thinking otherwise.
“Everything started to click,” Deebach said. “I think it is going to be an exceptional game.”
