Nothing could hold the Camas baseball team on Saturday in Yakima.
Playing in spacious Yakima County Stadium, the Papermakers pounded out four homers, scored 18 runs on 25 hits in the first two state-playoff wins in school history. Camas beat West Valley of Yakima 13-2 and then Ferndale 5-3 to earn its first trip to the 3A state semifinals on Friday at Safeco Field.
“We were on the ball all day,” Camas coach Joe Hallead said. “We were squaring up everything, hitting line drives, hitting the ball all over the park.”
Kurt Yinger and Drew Drlik hit home runs in the win over West Valley and Taylor Williams did the rest from the mound, going the distance and striking out six.
Caleb Malychewski and Derek Atkinson each went 3 for 5 against West Valley. Williams was 2 for 4 with two RBI as Camas jumped on West Valley with a six-run second inning. Yinger’s home run was the big blow in the second.
In the second game, Yinger hit another home run and Williams hit a blast that Hallead said travelled about 430 feet.
“That ball might have hit the Hit-It-Here Cafe at Safeco,” Hallead said.
Yinger pitched for the win against Ferndale and was 2 for 3 with two RBI from the plate. Williams was 3 for 4 with a home run, double and two RBI as the Papermakers built a 5-0 lead after four innings, then fended off a Ferndale rally in the sixth.
“The guys are just peaking at the right time offensively,” Hallaed said. “We scored in almost every inning from the first game to the fourth inning of the second.”
The celebration started right after the final out and lasted for more than an hour.
“They eventually had to come kick us off the field,” Hallead said. “It was amazing. We had about 150 people come out from Camas to support us and watch the first two state victories in Camas history. We had former players come out and join the celebration.
“We were making history, and it was just a great feeling.”
Camas (19-7) will play Columbia River in the 3A semifinal at 1 p.m. Friday at Safeco Field in Seattle.
O’Dea 9, Union 8, 8 innings — The Irish prevailed in an extra-inning dogfight over Union at Bellevue’s Bannerwood Park.
Next up for the defending state champs: a familiar venture across town to Safeco Field, site of the state tournament’s version of the Final Four.
But the 10th-ranked Irish already have had their share of drama. After Union snagged an 8-7 lead in the top of the eighth, the Irish loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the frame and used a sacrifice fly from junior first baseman Paul Sitkowski to tie it.
O’Dea then walked off with the win after junior catcher Sean Yanuss cranked a line drive to left field, plating the winning run and sending teammates chasing after him for the obligatory head-slapping celebration.
“We battled. It just didn’t work out in our favor today,” Union coach Tom Lampkin said.
The Titans won the first state playoff baseball game in school history as Leko Galusha pitched a complete game and Caleb Whalen delivered two big hits as Union beat Bishop Blanchet 7-6.
Galusha threw 110 pitches over seven innings in a game that was delayed for 93 minutes after Union took a 4-2 lead in the top of the fourth inning.
Whalen homered to begin the scoring in Union’s four-run fourth, and later delivered a game-tying double with one out in the top of the seventh.
Blanchet right fielder Josh Sale, a projected first-round draft pick this year, hit a home run to put the Braves.
In addition to being the school’s first state win in baseball, it was special for Union head coach Tom Lampkin. Lampkin grew up in Bellevue and played many games at Bannerwood Park. He played high school baseball for Bishop Blanchet. Braves coach George Monica was the coach back then, too.
