Yellow Pages
ANACORTES — The Anacortes Steamers sure didn’t look like the team playing its first game in more than two weeks.
Anacortes took advantage of 10 Wheatland (Wyo.) errors to beat the Lobos 16-5 Wednesday at Volunteer Field in the first round of the American Legion Northwest Class A Regional Tournament.
Anacortes will face Box Elder (Utah) in the second round at 7:30 p.m. today.
The Anacortes team, the city’s AA American Legion squad, looked sharp after a layoff of 17 days since being eliminated in the District Tournament. The Steamers qualified for the tournament by being the host team.
Casey Lloyd, Hayden Knight and Garrett Wilbur each scored twice for the Steamers. Mark Medalia went 3-for-4 with three runs batted in, and Marcus Abbott drove in two, going 2-for-4 with a pair of walks. Knight was also 3-for-4 and Wilbur 3-for-5.
Abbott went 6 2/3 innings on the mound, allowing nine hits and three runs to pick up the victory. He wriggled out of trouble several times, giving up just the two runs in the sixth and one more in the seventh. He had five strikeouts, all in the first two innings.
The Steamers scored three in the first inning in a rally that began with the bases empty and two out. Lloyd doubled and scored on Abbott’s single. He scored when Wyatt Hendricks’ fly ball to center was dropped, the first of many Wheatland errors.
Anacortes added one more in the second on a Braiden Darling sacrifice fly, then broke it open with three more in the fifth. Medalia and Knight smacked RBI singles. Medalia’s RBI double was the big blow in the two-run sixth. Walks and more errors allowed Anacortes three runs without a hit in the seventh. Knight doubled and scored in the eighth, and Jackson Kirkpatrick and Wilbur had back-to-back doubles in the ninth, along with two more errors, to key a three-run rally in the ninth.
This tournament is technically called the Northwest Class A Regional Tournament, but this is not to be confused with the Class A Legion baseball from the area that is comprised primarily of players entering their sophomore and junior years in high school. The level of play here is closer to AA or even AAA baseball. Many of the teams are primarily composed of players entering, or even exiting, their senior years in high school, and many of the players on the Canadian team have a year in college behind them as well.
Ashland (Ore.) Pilots 4, Chehalis (Wa.) Lizards 2
Ian Kendall’s two-run homer in the fifth inning proved the difference in the opening game of the tournament. Kendall and Nick Hall each scored two runs for the Pilots. Kendall also doubled in the contest.
Brady Thomas scattered nine hits over seven innings for the win. Garrett Tygerson had an RBI single and also got the save, pitching the final two innings.
Cody Ray and Edgar Burns each had two hits and a run scored for Chehalis, which stranded 12 runners in the game.
Box Elder (Utah) 18, Fairbanks (Alaska) Gold 2
Derek Leishman had four of Box Elder’s 16 hits and scored three runs in the blowout. The game was shortened to seven innings by the 10-run rule.
Box Elder batted around in each of the final three innings, scoring four, six and six in the final three innings, respectively. Fairbanks helped Box Elder with seven errors.
Taylor Larssen was the beneficiary of the offensive support, throwing six innings of two-hit ball for the win.
Tyler Bolles and Dalton Brock each had a hit and an RBI for Fairbanks.
Vauxhall (Alberta) Spurs 8, Lewis-Clark (Id.) Cubs 7, 10 innings
Zachary Rhodes singled in Ryan Hutchison with the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning to help Vauxhall overcome a ninth-inning collapse.
Lewis-Clark scored four in the top of the ninth to forge the tie. John Rogers had a two-run triple, then scored to pull the Cubs within one. Doug Adelsbech singled with the bases loadeded to score Johnny Rake, but the Spurs threw out Kyle Knigge at the plate by 10 feet to preserve the tie.
Colton LaBoucane picked up the win in relief of Cole Stober, who went 8 1/3 innings and threw 164 pitches but couldn’t get the final two outs.
Vauxhall scored four in the fifth to take control of the game, stringing together six hits in a span of seven batters.
