Another year, another Swamp Cup for the W.F. West Bearcats over the Centralia Tigers.
In a 24-hour span, the Bearcats mollywhopped the Tigers to the tune of 30 runs in the 10 innings they came to bat while only allowing three hits.
W.F. West knocked off Centralia 14-1 in five innings at home Wednesday night to clinch the season series over its crosstown foes and its 24th straight victory in the rivalry. The Bearcats used a four-spot in the first inning and a nine-run second to blow the game open quickly, one night after they downed Centralia 16-0.
“We’re pretty good one through nine in our lineup. I’d put them against anybody,” W.F. West Jesse Elam said.
Miles Martin got things rolling for the Bearcats’ bats by driving in Hiro Smaciarz on a single to center, and Beckman Dvorak’s two-run single on the following at-bat gave W.F. West a 3-0 lead. Dvorak came around to score on a Hudson McCallum RBI single.
Cole Ozretich took the mound for the Bearcats and ran into some trouble in the second inning after a fairly clean first inning with just one walk. In the second, he walked four Tigers to forfeit a run. Following a brief meeting on the mound with catcher Deacon Meller and a coach, Ozretich struck out Mykal Sneller on three straight strikes and got a flyout with the bases loaded to prevent any further damage.
“I just needed to breathe and get out of my head a little bit. Coach came up to talk to me and helped me clear my head a little bit,” Ozretich said. “I just couldn’t find my fastball there, and that’s been a little bit of an issue this season, but I’m coming back from it and coming off of a little bit of a shoulder injury.”
Ozretich’s teammates backed him up by pouring it on in the bottom of the second. Luke McMillan and Smaciarz singled off Tigers righty Brock Boone to lead off the frame, and Meller picked up an RBI on a sacrifice fly to make it 5-1. Smaciarz scored on a wild pitch, and, four walks and another wild pitch later, two more runs crossed home plate. McCallum and Hayden Rooney opened the flood gates with an RBI single and two-run double, respectively.
In their second at-bats of the inning, Smaciarz picked up his second hit on an RBI single, and Meller tacked on his second RBI of the frame to make it 13-1. For the second straight night, Centralia struggled to finish off an inning.
“We gotta throw strikes consistently. We had a tough time early in the game. Brock didn’t have great command of the strike zone today, and when you’re giving free bases, things get magnified and the defense starts to fall asleep,” LeDuc said. “But I’ll give it to our kids that we battled and we never gave up.”
W.F. West (7-0, 3-0 EvCo) scored its 14th and final run of the night in the fourth, and Centralia (0-9, 0-3 EvCo) broke up a no-hitter in the fifth on freshman Shawn Holmes’ first career hit.
The Bearcats host Sehome on Friday at 4:30 p.m. before heading to spring break while Centralia gets the first of three straight games against Shelton on Friday at 7 p.m. W.F. West and Centralia will meet for a third time on April 25.
