It was a familiar feeling on Field 2 at Fort Borst Park in Centralia on Monday, when for the second straight year, Toledo blew out North Beach in the first round of the 2B District 4 Tournament.
The third-seeded Riverhawks were in control nearly the entire way against the No. 5 Hyaks, cruising to a 26-3 five-inning victory.
North Beach actually got on the board first, scoring a run on a Toledo throwing error in the top of the first, but it didn’t take the Riverhawks long to get that run back and then some in the bottom half.
Eleven of the first 12 Riverhawks to step up to the plate reached base safely, and the only batter that didn’t still did a job by hitting a sacrifice fly to drive in a run.
By the end of the inning, Toledo led 11-1, and they were nowhere near done.
“It was one of those games where we just kept adding on,” Toledo coach Jeff Davis said.
Toledo scored seven more runs in the second, highlighted by a solo home run off the bat of Brenna Carver, and Taysia Miller added a two-run shot in the third to push the lead to 20-1.
In the fourth, they added six more runs to extend the lead to as high as 26-2.
“The pitching was not as fast as we’re used to,” Davis said. “A lot of time, when we’ve seen pitching like that, it’s taken us a little bit of time to make the adjustment. Today, we sat back, and we waited. And when the ball got there, we hit it hard, and we hit it all over the place.”
The box score looks like one out of a video game.
Five different Riverhawks tallied at least three hits, and six drove in multiple runs. Miller had four hits, finishing a double shy of the cycle, and drove in four runs, while Carver finished a triple shy of the cycle and drove in three runs.
Peyton Holter finished with three hits and five RBIs, Zaya Norberg, Camryn Hurley, and Ellie Seely added two hits and two RBIs each, and Audrey Cooper added three hits and an RBI of her own.
Xtyn Norberg added four hits and scored twice, and Kailea Larson added a hit and an RBI while scoring three times.
As a team, the Riverhawks finished with 25 hits, including at least one from every starter. The only Riverhawk to not tally a hit, Alyssa Hensley, still was able to reach base by drawing a walk in her only plate appearance.
In the field, the error in the first wasn’t the only one the Riverhawks made. They finished the day with three. Davis said that’s something they’ll need to clean up before Friday, but he was pleased about how quickly the team was able to move past the mistakes.
“The errors that were made were kind of small,” Davis said. “We didn’t let one mistake continue to cause another. It was few and far between.”
Holter pitched the first four innings, allowing just one hit and two unearned runs while striking out nine, while Carver allowed an unearned run in the fifth and struck out two.
With the win, Toledo is through to the district quarterfinals, where it will face No. 2 Forks at Fort Borst Park on Friday. A win would put the Riverhawks through to the winner-to-state semifinals against either Toutle Lake or Adna.
“I like the idea that there’s some time now,” Davis said, noting the three-day gap between the first round and the quarterfinals. “Win or lose, getting through this tournament and heading to state is the goal. We’ll just play clean, solid ball, keep hitting the ball hard, make sure our pitchers are throwing strikes, and I think we’ll be ready for Forks.”
