Playing in a tournament within a tournament that was postponed twice because of rain, the Mountain View baseball team survived to advance to the Class 3A state tournament.
The Thunder took advantage of some sloppy fielding by Peninsula of Gig Harbor on Tuesday, recording an 8-5 victory in Tacoma to earn the fifth and final berth to state from the West-Central/Southwest Washington bi-district tournament.
“It’s a special season,” Mountain View coach Aaron Coiteux said. “Hopefully we can build this program off this year, and continue this season.”
Mountain View will play O’Dea of Seattle at 10 a.m. Saturday at Wheeler Field in Centralia in the state round of 16. The winner will face the winner of the Camas-Glacier Peak game, later Saturday. The winner of the Centralia regional will play in the state semifinals at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma.
This is Mountain View’s first trip to state since 1994. The Thunder made it to the Class 4A state tournament in 1991, 1993, and 1994, but have never won a game in the state tournament.
Zach Torson, who would not have pitched if this game had been played when scheduled on Saturday, went the distance against Peninsula and struck out seven. He gave up two earned runs.
Errors hurt Peninsula even more.
The Thunder scored four runs in the second inning, three coming on one error — a flyball that was dropped in the outfield with the bases loaded, two outs and the runners on the move.
Peninsula made a few more mistakes in the fifth inning, when Mountain View scored four more runs to take a commanding 8-2 lead.
Ryan Johnson and PJ Jones each drove in two runs for the Thunder, Cody Anderson had two hits and drove in a run, and Ross Campbell had a double and drove in a run — those four players accounting for the five Mountain View hits.
The Thunder went 4-1 in the bi-district, including three wins in elimination games. Once the Thunder fell into the consolation bracket, it turned into an eight-team tournament for one final seed to state.
The Thunder will bring a lot of confidence with them to Centralia.
“Not too many programs around can say they have 22 wins,” Coiteux said. “And four of our five losses have come against top teams.”
No. 1 Camas has three wins over Mountain View, and No. 3 Enumclaw also beat the Thunder.
Come Saturday, the rankings and any past results will mean nothing.
