Tigers Ousted on Day 1 in Selah

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SELAH — The Centralia softball team’s historic season made it to Selah for the first time in over a decade, but came to an end after just two games at Carlon Park, as the Tigers fell 5-3 to R.A. Long in a loser-out district rematch Friday afternoon.

“We came and competed,” Centralia coach David Orr said. “They did their job. They like to play from behind, I guess. We put ourselves in a hole in the first inning of that game, but they battled, right to the end.”

It was Centralia’s second game against the Lumberjacks in eight days; the Tigers took the first step of their run to the district title game with a 3-2 win over RAL last Thursday at Rec Park in Chehalis.

This time, though, R.A. Long hit first and hit hard, plating three runs in the top of the first inning. It added runs in the fourth and fifth, never letting Centralia get the deficit below three until the final frame.

Centralia got on the board in the bottom of the fourth, when Jimena Luis scored Lauren Wasson on a sacrifice fly. That would be all for the Tigers until the bottom of the seventh when down to their final three outs, they rallied.

After Payton Baumel singled for her third hit of the day, Hollynn Wakefield put a bunt down and R.A. Long threw the ball wild into the outfield, scoring Baumel to make it 5-2. Two batters later, another bunt brought another run home, putting two on with one out.

But RAL ace Jadyn Terry capped off her day in the nick of time, getting her 14th and 15th strikeouts to end it.

Baumel finished the day 3 for 3 with the run scored. Wasson added a double, going 1 for 4, and Luis and Judy Vallejo both had hits for the Tigers in their final games for Centralia.

Wakefield took the loss, going all seven innings and allowing five runs, though only one was earned.

The Tigers nearly avoided the loser-out game entirely with their first comeback of the day, rallying in the top of the seventh inning of their first-round game against No. 8 Lynden to tie things at 4-4, before the Lions came back to walk off with a single in the bottom half of the inning.

Centralia ends its season with a 13-9 record. The Tigers will graduate Luis, Vallejo, Liliana Babka, and Peyton Smith, a senior group that led Centralia back to the state tournament for the first time since 2011.

“I’m super proud of these girls,” Orr said. “Everybody here is still super proud of these girls. They set a standard that we want to achieve every year. For these underclassmen, they’ve come here, they’ve seen it now, they know what it’s like. I told them, ‘Hold onto that feeling a little bit, and remember this. Because we want to get here, and we want to make it to Saturday.’

“We’re finishing this season off with our heads high, and in the offseason we’ll work and get back on it.”