The Centralia Tigers baseball team learned on April Fool’s Day that the 2025 W.F. West Bearcats are no joke.
In the first of back-to-back Swamp Cup contests, the Bearcats shut out their crosstown rivals 16-0 in six innings at Fort Borst Park Tuesday night. Centralia could only muster up two hits against Hayden Rooney, who struck out five in five innings in his first start of the season.
The Bearcats used a five-spot in the fourth and eight runs in the fifth to run away with the victory. Tuesday’s win brings W.F. West’s winning streak against the Tigers to 23, dating back to April 15, 2015.
“It’s another win. Our guys threw well, and our kids did a good job of fighting and competing,” W.F. West head coach Jesse Elam said.
Hiro Smaciarz led off the first inning with a walk and came all the way around to score after a wild pitch, a steal of third and a sacrifice fly. He touched home again in the third when Ross Kelley delivered a two-out to center to give W.F. West a 2-0 lead.
Kadin Yeung pitched effectively against a potent Bearcats batting order, allowing just one hit and two runs over three innings while walking three and striking out three. But with three games this week for the Tigers, head coach Jake LeDuc pulled his starter off the mound for Rocco Waring to start the fourth.
Miles Martin singled on the first pitch of the fourth but was thrown out stealing second, and Hudson McCallum flew out for the second out of the frame. Centralia fell apart trying to secure the third out.
Three walks and a hit batter brought the third run of the night home, and an infield error scored two more. Carlos Vallejo and Weston Potter kept the rally churning with RBI singles of their own to make it 7-0 heading to the bottom of the fourth. Isaiah Nachatilo-Smetzler’s RBI groundout extended the margin to eight before the dam broke in the eighth.
W.F. West found success via the bunt in the fifth, loading the bases with three straight bunt singles back to Waring, who couldn’t make the play on any of the three. Pinch-hitter Brooks Ledgerwood scored Potter on a sac fly for out two, but he would bat a second time with two outs in the inning as Centralia could not stop the bleeding.
Tucker Land smacked a screaming line drive to left field on the first pitch of his at-bat to score a pair, Smaciarz drove in another with a single, and Deacon Meller’s ninth RBI of the season came on a double to make it 13-0. The Bearcats were far from done; Potter’s third hit of the night was a two-run single to center, and a bases-loaded hit batter made it 16-0.
“They bunted us to death,” LeDuc said of the fifth inning. “Those are just hard plays. We don’t have the quickest guys in some spots, and I’m not saying that we’d make the play with a quicker guy, but we just couldn’t get to balls. That’s kind of been the story of our season at times.”
Overall, 13 of the Bearcats’ 16 runs were scored with two outs. That’s a key indication that their aggressive mindset at the plate is working early in the season.
“We’re playing hot and aggressive, and that’s how we want to set the tone of this season,” Kelley said. “We’re not gonna leave fastballs right down the middle. If they’re giving it to us, we’re going to take it and we’re going to be aggressive out there.”
W.F. West (6-0, 2-0 EvCo) and Centralia (0-8, 0-2 EvCo) will meet again Wednesday night at 4:30 p.m. at Bearcat Stadium and a third time on April 25 at Fort Borst Park.
