NAPAVINE — For more than a month, Napavine coach Brian Demarest has kept the big picture in mind.
Come mid-May, it’ll likely come down to four teams for a District 4 title: Adna, Toutle Lake, Ilwaco, and Napavine.
The first three teams took care of business in their quarterfinals on Saturday afternoon, and the Tigers did the same, run-ruling Raymond/South Bend 11-1 in five innings to advance to the district semifinals.
“You always wish you were a little crisper,” Demarest said. “I would have liked to see a little better approach out of our guys at times. But at this point in time, you win and play the next game. We’ll take it.”
RSB got on the board first, scoring on a bloop single in the top of the first, but Napavine immediately went to work offensively in the bottom half to respond.
Hudson Chambers and Cal Bullock hit back-to-back sacrifice flies to give the Tigers the lead, and one inning later Bullock drew a walk with the bases loaded to put Napavine up 3-1.
They blew the game open in the third, scoring six runs to push the lead to 9-1. In that inning, Carter Edmonds hit a two-run double, Beckett Landram hit a two-run single, Bullock hit an RBI single, and Tommy Deebach drew another bases-loaded walk.
Two innings later, a ground-rule double from Landram brought in Napavine’s 10th run, and a Grady Wilson drive to center found some grass for the run-rule walk-off single.
Landram finished with four hits, including a triple and a double, drove in two runs, and scored three times, and Wilson, Edmonds, and Bullock also drove in two runs each.
Eight different Tigers finished with a hit, including Wilson, who had two, and Hudson Chambers and Eric Bullock both drove in a run.
Layton Griffith pitched all five innings, allowing four hits and one run while walking one and striking out eight on 74 pitches.
“He didn’t have his best stuff today, but he was battling,” Demarest said. “Sometimes, you don’t have your best stuff and you got to step up there and grind … He’s going to have to be our guy moving forward. He’s going to have to find his pitches moving forward, and he will.”
With the win, the Tigers (19-2) are through to the semifinals, where they will play Toutle Lake in Napavine on Tuesday. The winner of that game will face the winner of the Ilwaco/Adna semifinal, which will take place right before the Tigers and Ducks square off.
The winners of the semifinals will advance to the district title game, which is set for next Saturday, May 16, at Wheeler Field in Centralia, while the losers will have two chances to pick up a win in the consolation bracket to earn a state berth.
If Napavine wins on Tuesday, it would ensure its third straight state trip and fourth in the last five years.
“Anytime you get to play for a chance to go to state is great,” Demarest said. “Tuesday can’t get here soon enough. Let’s play.”
