The Mountain View Thunder and the Skyview Storm — fittingly, it turned out — won big Monday afternoon before a thunderstorm put an early end to the day’s events.
Mountain View rallied from a four-run deficit to pound Evergreen 13-4, and Skyview doubled up Battle Ground 10-5 in the opening round of the Class 4A Greater St. Helens League’s district softball tournament at Heritage High School.
The Thunder and Storm advanced to the championship semifinals, where they both were playing the top seeds — Kelso and Heritage — before lightning and rain forced the games to be suspended.
Kelso’s Mackenzie Southard hit a two-run home run in the second inning to give the Hilanders a 2-0 lead over Skyview. Mountain View and Thunder were scoreless in the second inning of their game.
Those games will be resumed today — weather permitting — at 3 p.m.
The winners will face each other at 5 p.m. for the district championship. The 3 p.m. losers will play in the consolation semifinals. Then, on Wednesday, the loser of the championship game will take on the consolation semifinal winner for the district’s second berth to the bi-district playoffs.
Mountain View 13, Evergreen 4 — The Plainsmen scored the first four runs, but it was all Mountain View in the final three innings. The Thunder scored nine runs in the fifth inning.
Kylie Gaspar had three hits, including a home run, and drove in three runs for the Thunder. Mackenzie Samuelson had three hits, including two doubles, and also picked up the pitching win in relief. Courtney Kelly also had three hits for Mountain View.
Skyview 10, Battle Ground 5 — Madison Anthony had four hits, including a home run, and drove in two runs as Skyview led start-to-finish in its loser-out game.
The Storm scored four runs in the first inning and led 6-0 before Battle Ground got on the board.
Kristin Morgan added three hits for the Storm.
Girls tennis
4A district — Skyview’s Brittany Ellingsen and Battle Ground’s Jennica Vukanovich will play for the state tournament this Saturday after earning spots in the bi-district playoff.
Ellingsen won the district title with a 6-0, 6-2 win Saturday over Anna Romanovsky of Skyview, and Vukanovich won the second-place match on Monday over Romanovsky 7-5, 1-6, 6-3.
Mountain View will have both its doubles teams in the bi-district playoff. Chaeran Kim and Jenna Grillo won the district title over teammates Julie Christen and Shari Gray 6-2, 4-6, 7-5. Christen and Gray advanced to bi-district by default.
Mountain View and Skyview shared the team district title with 21 points each.
Four matches will be played on Saturday at Vancouver Tennis Center with the winners advancing to state.
Golf
3A bi-district — Union’s Belex Cheng took the girls medalist honor while the Titans’ Alistair Docherty tied for second among the boys to lead the group of local state qualifiers at the 3A bi-district state qualifying tournament at Fort Lewis.
Cheng shot an 85 to beat Camas’ Betsy Howd for top honors among the girls. Also advancing to state were McKinsey Rodgers of Camas, Cammie Irwin of Prairie, Mele Ana Kastner of Columbia River and Lauren Reynolds of Union.
Docherty shot a 74 to finish one stroke behind Capital’s T.J. Griggs. Also advancing to state were Nathan Ferrell of Prairie and Tyler Speer of Camas.
2A district — Elma’s Alexis Keating shot a 1-under par 71 at Three Rivers Golf Club in Kelso for the first-day lead. The top 40 golfers and ties qualified for today’s second round and the top 21 placers will advance to the state tournament next week.
Hockinson’s Stephanie Swindell is in seventh place with a 90, and Woodland’s Tia Tsugawa is tied for ninth with 93.
