TOLEDO — Things might have got a bit bumpy in the middle, but the Toledo baseball team came out of Saturday with everything it wanted from its first outing in the 2B District 4 tournament.
First and foremost, the Riverhawks won, pulling away from Forks for a 9-4 victory. Only slightly less importantly, they did so while holding their pitchers under 75 pitches, keeping them available for the next round. And head coach Mack Gaul will take that with a few runs given away over a complete game any day of the week.
“Any way you can get a win in the district playoffs is a good win,” he said.
To set the pitching up successfully, Gaul gave the ball not to ace Caiden Schultz but to Rogan Stanley, his No. 2 starter. For four frames, the plan worked perfectly; Stanley put up four shutout frames, dancing around traffic on the bases by rolling multiple ground balls that the Toledo infield used to nab runners at the plate.
In the fifth, though, Stanley started to run into trouble, with three straight singles and a walk bringing home two runs and putting the tying run on base, still with no outs, with the pitch count up at 71.
Enter Schultz, making just his second relief appearance of the season, in a high-pressure situation.
“It was thrilling,” Schultz said. “I loved every second of it. It just makes it exciting, adrenaline was through the roof.”
Forks managed one more run in the frame on an error before Schultz struck out the side. The Spartans got another run in the sixth on an overthrown attempted back-pick, but three more strikeouts kept the Riverhawks ahead 5-4. And after Toledo finally broke things open with a four-spot in the bottom of the sixth, Schultz punched out three more.
Toledo’s ace earned the win in relief, striking out nine and allowing just the one unearned run on one hit. Most importantly, he did so on 59 pitches, keeping him available for Tuesday’s winner-to-State semifinal against Pacific 2B League champs Ilwaco.
“He’s a gamer,” Gaul said. “He wants the ball any time you ask him, and he’ll go after it.”
Schultz also went 2 for 4 at the plate, driving in a run and scoring two more. The Riverhawks as a lineup combined for 11 hits, taking advantage of Forks having spent its own ace to get through a loser-out game against Wahkiakum in the morning.
The top of the lineup did just about all of the damage, with the first four batters in the order — Rayder Stemkoski, Schultz, Stanley, and Geoffrey Glass — all notching multiple hits. Glass led the way with a 3-for-3 day at the plate with a walk and two doubles, an RBI, and two runs scored.
Kaven Winters started things off with a two-run single in the third, kicking off a four-run rally that put the Riverhawks ahead for the first time.
Toledo will take on Ilwaco on Tuesday, with Schultz set to take the ball again and a State bid on the line, hoping to clean up the things that made Saturday as close as it was as the level of competition rises.
“We’re the only team that can beat us,” Gaul said. “If we play to our level, where we were Game 1 and Game 2 against Toutle Lake, I don’t think any team in the state can beat us.”
