Prep baseball: Adna bats shine again to clinch share of league title

May 1-ADNA - There was some truth to the state of the Adna High School baseball team back in March. Pitching was the perceived strength and backbone, then the offense would play the complimentary role.

The calendar officially flipped to May on Friday.

My, how things have changed.

Since coming back from spring break, the Pirates have rattled off five games with double digit runs and another one that was close to secure a share of the C2BL title with a 15-4, five-inning victory versus Toledo at home on the last day of league play.

"I love this group of guys, we're one of the best in the state," Adna cleanup hitter Aiden Percival said. "I'm glad to be at the top with Napavine. We glue together really nicely and the team chemistry just brings it up a lot."

It's the third straight season Adna (17-2, 14-2 C2BL) has at least tied for the crown. It shared first place with Toutle Lake two years ago and won it outright last season. In order to determine the top two seeds for the Class 2B District 4 tournament - which begins Saturday May 9 - it will be via coin toss.

Napavine was able to blow by Onalaska 14-0 to make it come down to a flip.

"Tails never fails," Pirates head coach Jake Overbay quipped with a smile. "I'm more proud of how they finished. To see the two wins in how they did it, they keep bringing the bats. As an opponent, how do we shut them down when you see one-through-nine do what they're doing?

"I'm trying to get them to understand how championship-level they are now."

While the lineup has produced a bounty of runs against the league's bottom-four teams, Adna wasn't exposed to either the best from the P2BL or within its own league. That changed in a hurry.

Series against the three programs directly behind the Pirates in the standings plus a district title rematch against Ilwaco and two games versus Pe Ell/Willapa Valley all came in a two-plus week stretch.

They went 8-2.

"Just keep winning the inning," Overbay said.

A signature bright spot has been the emergence of Percival in the heart of Adna's order. The sophomore went 4-for-4 and drove in four runs. He kickstarted the three-run first, three-run third and five-run fifth frames with singles.

He's been ingrained with the program from his older brother Tristan being a star through his prep career.

"What I've been trying to work on is keeping my weight back in my back leg, sitting on the curveball and if I get a fastball, unload it early in the count," the younger Percival said. "You don't want to get rung up on."

"Early on he put too much pressure on himself," Overbay added. "Today, it looked like a beach ball. His baseball IQ for his age is phenomenal."

Toledo (12-7, 11-5) struggled to get the ball back in play and several bobbles in the outfield that allowed its opposition to advance 90 more feet. Admittedly, head coach Mack Gaul knew his group was using Friday as an opportunity to play spoiler.

Still, he was not happy with the mental mistakes.

"Just bad mental baseball," Gaul said.

After the Riverhawks jumped out to a 1-0 lead on a Nico Acosta RBI single, Adna proceeded to make it a five-run cushion. They left four runners on base before breaking through in the fourth with a Rohan Feigenbaum run-scoring double, another tally on an error and a sacrifice fly from Eli Weeks.

In the blink of an eye, it was a two-run contest.

"We hit the ball pretty well today and made things happen," Gaul said. "Sometimes, that's baseball."

Beau Miller, Elijah Sliva, Jack Pennington and Cameron Nakano all added RBIs in the bottom half of the fourth. In the fifth, two passed balls brought in two more Pirates and Miller capped a four-RBI day of his own with the game-sealing two-run base hit.

It was a subdued celebration afterwards. Adna's sights remain high as ever.

"Our coach preaches never be down on yourself and always explode back with a crooked number the next inning," Percival stated. "And we like to do that."

Nakano went the distance and danced out of self-inflicted jams of three walks, two hit by pitches and three unearned runs to earn the victory. Talan Guerrero scored thrice and added two hits while Pennington and Jackson Bright combined to draw five walks.

Adna closes the regular season against Tenino on Monday before the district tournament commences. It will be at home regardless of seeding.

"We're not our best yet, but we are starting to play better baseball," Overbay said. "You're going to see everybody again."

Austin Reed finished with three hits, half of the total for the Riverhawks. They will play either Mossyrock, Onalaska or North Beach in the first round then will get to take on reigning district champ Ilwaco in the quarters.

Gaul is still waiting to see if his bunch can put together a complete game. He stated the old cliche multiple times in the postgame huddle that "everyone is 0-0."

"As soon as we can put together a full seven innings of limiting physical and mental mistakes, we should be a pretty good team," Gaul said. "We got to do it."

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.