The Centralia softball team came back to Rec Park on Friday with its first State bid since 2011 in its back pocket, with nothing left to do but go for its third upset in two days in the 2A District 4 title game.
This time around, the Tigers didn’t quite have the shocker in them, falling to Ridgefield — who will go into next week as one of the favorites at State — 5-2 but still going home with a district trophy for the first time in over a decade.
“We were pretty relaxed coming into this one,” Centralia coach David Orr said. “Ridgefield’s a really good team, and we just wanted to come in and compete. We held them at bay for a couple of innings, but they chipped away and got a couple runs here, a couple runs there.”
Peyton Smith made her first appearance of the postseason in the circle for the Tigers, presenting a change in speeds from sophomore Hollynn Wakefield. The senior kept the Spudders at bay for two innings before Ridgefield took advantage of an error to tag her for a pair of unearned runs.
The next inning, the Spudders punished her for two walks with two RBI singles, doubling the lead and ending her outing with two outs in the fourth.
“I wanted to slow them down a bit,” Orr said. “She did a good job for about two innings. I probably should have pulled her a bit sooner, but it is what it is. Hollynn came in and did a great job.”
Wakefield logged only one strikeout — after Smith had none — but the two combined to allow just seven hits. The only blight on Wakefield’s line came in the sixth, when Ridgefield led off with a solo home run to make it 5-0.
Centralia threatened to take the lead in the bottom of the second, putting a pair of runners on with no outs, but lined into a double play to dampen the rally and ran into an out on the bases to end it completely.
The Tigers continued to put traffic on the bases but didn’t cash in until Makayla Chavez came through with a two-out RBI single in the sixth, and Payton Baumel followed that up with a knock of her own to make it 5-2.
“Our offense, we came out a little flat, but they started clicking,” Orr said. “Yesterday was a pretty emotional high for me, and I can imagine it was for the girls. Maybe a little fall off from that, but once they got dialed in, they were there.”
Chavez and Baumel both finished 2 for 3, as did Liliana Babka. Sophomore Chloe Bonomi came up with a pinch-hit single in the seventh, but the Tigers couldn’t do anything with it.
Centralia will go into Sunday with a vested interest in the State bracket for the first time since its oldest players were in first grade. The Tigers will learn their seeding and first-round opponent then, and will head to Selah for a run in the State tournament next weekend.
“I told them just now that when I walked in here today, I was already a winner,” Orr said. “I had achieved the goal that I wanted, and that was to get one more week with these kids, one more week with these seniors. That’s huge, and everything after that is a bonus. We’re going to go back to work on Monday, keep working, and go over and compete and see how far we can go.”
