<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Three-run rally in seventh sends Skyview baseball to title game

Storm rally to beat Wenatchee 3-1, will face Richland for 4A title

By Sandy Ringer / For The Columbian
Published: May 25, 2018, 3:32pm

PASCO — Not again. Uh-uh. No way.

A year after falling short in the Class 4A state baseball semifinals against eventual-champion Puyallup, the Skyview baseball team sat on the verge of another disappointment.

The Storm trailed Wenatchee by a run going into the top of the seventh inning of this year’s semifinal game at Gesa Stadium.

It’s just the kind of pressure senior Daniel Copeland and junior Ryan Pitts live for, and both came through in the clutch Friday to lift Skyview to a 3-1 victory.

The third-ranked Storm (22-5) play red-hot Richland (17-10) in the title game Saturday at 4 p.m. The Bombers blanked Federal Way in Friday’s first semifinal, 11-0 in five innings.

Copeland delivered an RBI single to tie the game and Pitts provided the two-run, game-winning hit with two outs.

“Pitts comes through every single time he needs to,” said Copeland, who then pitched a 1-2-3 bottom of the inning to earn the complete-game victory. “He usually always does something big. Pitts is just a big-time player.”

And so is Copeland, who has signed with Gonzaga.

“He is as an intense of a competitor I’ve ever been around as a coach,” coach Seth Johnson said. “He competes on the mound, he competes at the plate, he competes on the bases, in the outfield. He’s just a competitor. He doesn’t want to lose. He plays with a fire that definitely gets our team going. He’s definitely our sparkplug.”

Copeland allowed six hits, four of them in the fifth, when Wenatchee got on the board, and struck out six without a walk. He minimized damage in the fifth with a strikeout and pop up as the Panthers left the bases loaded.

Designated hitter Griffin Sissel started Skyview’s seventh-inning rally with a leadoff walk and was replaced on the basepaths by Brent Monohan. No. 9 hitter Noah Guyette did his job with a sacrifice bunt and Copeland followed with a single up the middle to tie the game. Liam Kerr and Max Rose were intentionally walked with a groundout sandwiched in between.

Then came Pitts, who laced a 1-0 pitch down the left-field line to plate two.

Just another day at the office for Mr. Clutch.

“My teammates make fun of me all the time that I have ice in my veins,” Pitts said.

Copeland, who was 2-for-3 with a walk in the leadoff spot, will play right field Saturday. Johnson said sophomore Cooper Barnum likely will get the start on the mound against Richland, which is looking to add a baseball banner to the one they won in football last fall.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Johnson said. “We’re playing a really good team tomorrow, a really good team — a hot team….They’re playing phenomenal right now.”

But so is Skyview, which has won six straight since a 5-4 loss to Beamer of Federal Way in early May. And the Storm, which won their only baseball crown in 2013, didn’t come here for anything less than a championship.

“The goal is to get the state title,” Copeland said. “We’re not content with second place. We don’t like losing.”

Loading...
Tags