YAKIMA — Picture one of the most daunting challenges in all of sports. Arguably, it’s walking off the wrestling mat after losing in the semifinals at the NCAA Championships.
The feeling of being that close to a title and it slips through the finger tips leads to heartbreak. Those wrestlers get a full night of rest to reset and prepare to go chase the next best thing.
Which is way more than what the 15-to-18 year old girls on Toledo and Pe Ell/Willapa Valley’s softball teams got. Maybe 30 minutes, tops.
“It is tough. You gotta keep battling,” Riverhawks head coach Jeff Davis said. “Keep going, keep fighting and good things happen.”
With a 16-team double elimination tournament in Class 2B and how often the schedule got behind due to 1B games running long, Toledo and PWV had to recover from not only being one win away from a championship appearance, but playing on the exact same field as the semifinal losses.
Two of District 4’s best responded and left the Gateway Sports Complex with some hardware on Saturday.
For the second time in as many days, Toledo used a four-run seventh inning to dispatch Liberty 10-8 in the consolation semis and PWV routed Northwest Christian 19-5 in five innings to guarantee a top-four finish.
In the third place game, the Riverhawks picked up a 17-13 victory over the Titans.
“I definitely thought we could get to state, but towards the middle of the season, I really thought we could place,” Toledo sophomore outfielder Kailea Lairson said.
It marks the highest finish at state for Toledo since placing third in 2006. Just a year ago, this same group went 0-2 on day two and drove back to Lewis County without a trophy.
So when the players got their hands on the third place trophy, they made sure to celebrate the moment. It took until a six-run sixth inning for the Riverhawks to break away from PWV to nab third in a game that featured 30 runs, 30 hits and 10 errors.
They erased deficits of 6-0 and 8-6 versus Liberty to keep the season alive.
“They don’t quit, they keep playing (and) they don't give up on each other,” Davis said. “The most impressive thing is if we've gotten behind against good teams, we come back. Really proud of them. Getting third place is quite the milestone.”
Peyton Holter and Brenna Carver battled through the warm weather and combined to throw 338 pitches in three games on Saturday. The C2BL Co-MVP exited after four innings in the third place game and Carver, a freshman, only allowed two unearned runs in the last three frames.
After getting silenced against top-seeded Freeman to the tune of an 11-1, five-inning loss, Toledo (21-7) found a way to exit Yakima happily. Its only senior is Emma Woodard.
“We wanted to go farther than we did last year,” Lairson said.
PWV (21-6) answered from a 13-8 loss in the semifinals to eventual champion Adna the only way it knew how: Offense.
Ten runs in the bottom of the first put the game versus the Crusaders out of reach and it tacked on four more in the second and five in the third. Still, head coach Eric Hopfer felt the energy in the dugout was not like it was compared to Friday.
“They were stumbling through that game,” he said. “It wouldn’t take much for them to trip up. They did awesome, they really did awesome.”
The Titans trailed 10-4 after just two-and-a-half innings, but grabbed the lead thanks to five in the third and two in the fourth. Errors ended up costing them in the semis and third place contests, 17 total in those 14 innings.
Despite the 1-2 day two record, senior Addison Merkel was still a part of back-to-back top-four teams in one of the hardest tournaments in the state.
She isn’t taking that for granted.
“We’re still happy,” Merkel said. “It is special to be able to get two trophies. Looking back, we’re gonna be really grateful for these opportunities.”
Hopfer, admittedly, wants the bevy of returners expected for 2026 to leave with a sour taste in their mouth even with a trophy coming back home. He’ll have his entire infield, battery and two outfielders back next spring.
“I hope they have the sour taste and I hope they can have something sweeter next year,” he said. “There’s a core group here.”
Lorelei Smaciarz, Brookelynn King and Merkel leave the program, but Merkel believes the future of the Titans is capable of getting back to competing for state championships.
“They know what they need to do,” she said.
