Titans Shut Down in District Semifinals by 19-K No-Hitter

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The Pe Ell-Willapa Valley softball team ran into a buzzsaw Wednesday at Fort Borst Park in the 2B District 4 semifinals.

A familiar buzzsaw, but a buzzsaw nonetheless.

Continuing her dominant tournament run, Ocosta’s Jessie Gilbert shut the Titans down all day long, striking out 19 in a no-hitter to lead the Wildcats to a 2-0 win.

“She’s a great pitcher, “ PWV coach Eric Hopfer said. “She really is.”

The Titans’ best chance against Gilbert — who opened her tournament with a 19-strikeout no-hitter against Onalaska on Monday, then no-hit Toutle Lake in the early game Wednesday — came in the top of the sixth inning of a 0-0 game, when Kylee Lyons drew a leadoff walk. With a runner on the bases for just the second time, PWV went into manufacturing mode, and Lyons turned on the jets to go all the way around to third on a sacrifice bunt.

That put the go-ahead run 60 feet away, and all PWV wanted to do was put down one more bunt to get her home. Even that proved tough against Gilbert’s speed, and the Ocosta sophomore got two more strikeouts to get out of it.

Then in the bottom half of the frame, Ocosta finally solved PWV’s Lauren Emery, who had matched Gilbert shutout inning for shutout inning through five, plating a pair.

The Titans split their regular-season doubleheader against the Wildcats in Westport. The first game looked nearly identical to Wednesday, though PWV’s manufacturing job produced a key run for a 1-0 win, and in the second, it got to a fatigued Gilbert for a few hits. This time around, though, Gilbert was just too much.

“She was in our heads today,” Hopfer said. “Hats off to Jessie, she did a great job.”

Hopfer said the Titans’ heads were a bit off from the time they got to Centralia for their quarterfinal matchup against Toledo. PWV fell behind early to a Riverhawk three-spot in the first inning before coming back to take a 7-3 lead, helped by a two-run home run by Lauren Matlock in the second. 

Toledo cut the deficit to two runs before the Titans dropped five runs in the bottom of the sixth to give itself some breathing room.

“I think today, we were flat all the way around,” Hopfer said. “I think we came out flat against Toledo. We warmed up a bit, but by the time the second game rolled around, I think our heads were in the clouds a little bit, and we were in our heads about Jessie.”

Emery finished with 17 strikeouts over her two games in the circle. Payton Peterson went 3 for 4 in the first game, while Matlock, Lyons, and Sophia Milanowski all had two-hit games.

PWV will be back in Centralia on Saturday to get another crack at punching its tickets to State. The Titans will face Raymond-South Bend in the morning with a spot in the big dance on the line and will play again at 2 p.m., either in a meaningless third place game or a fifth-place game to make a crossover matchup against Friday Harbor in the evening.