Peninsula and Stadium advance after Saturday’s regional baseball playoff round
As the ball took a large hop off the artificial turf at Auburn Baseball Stadium and bounced past Stadium third baseman Tristan Luxenberg into left field, Peninsula’s Matthew Sleeter raced toward the bag from where he was stationed at second base.
Michael Tellez’s third hit of the 3A B-District baseball championship reached the Tigers left fielder, who slung a throw toward the plate that was cut off. Sleeter kept going, the cutoff man turned but the throw was off line and Sleeter scored to put the seventh-seeded Seahawks in front for the third time in the game, 5-4.
“I knew I hit it hard,” Tellez said. “But I was expecting someone to make a play. But it just skipped on this turf and scored him.”
The RBI was Tellez’s second of the game. One batter later, virtually the same play turned into the third out of the inning for Stadium. But that run proved to be the difference as Peninsula handed first-year head coach Matt Thomas a district title.
Both teams advanced to next weekend’s regional round of games. They will find out where and who they play on Sunday.
The victory was the second of the season for Peninsula over the Pierce County League champs. But it didn’t come easy.
Though the Seahawks took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning, they relinquished it in the bottom of the third as Stadium scored twice to tie it. Peninsula scored twice again in the fourth, and gave the lead up to two Tigers runs in the bottom of the inning.
Stadium then got the first two outs in the fifth before Sleeter lined a single into left center field. The Seahawks first baseman took second on a wild pitch by Kellen Colglazier and that’s where he was when Tellez, who went 3-for-4, scored a run and drove in two, skipped his game-winner through the hole on the left side in the fifth.
Stadium mounted a threat in the bottom of the seventh when with one out Jackson Noonan walked and Colglazier singled, putting runners at first and second. Dayton Lopez struck out for the second out of the inning before Tigers catcher Bennett Nieraeth walked to load the bases.
Peninsula reliever John Browand, who issued the Nieraeth walk, struck out Max Heinze to end the game.
“They’re a real good team.” Stadium coach Justin Hinkle said. “We played two great games and we just came up a little short in the second one. What we were looking for was that one clutch hit.”
The Tigers held off Silas, who scored three times in the top of the seventh against Kelso to take third place in the bi-district tournament (5-4), in a 2-1 semifinal victory on Saturday morning.
“It hasn’t sunk in yet,” Thomas said. “I didn’t think this was coming. We really didn’t know what to expect this year. We only had one guy coming back who threw any pitches on varsity last year. We’ve got four freshman up here, two sophomores and a bunch of juniors.”
The Seahawks just may be peaking at the right time, though. They came into the district round on Saturday at 12-9 overall. They took out Kelso in the semifinal and then beat the PCL champs to win the title.
Still, Peninsula needed a third rally to get the job done in the championship.
“The way we play defense, it’s tough to beat us,” Thomas said. “But we needed it to happen one more time. You gotta trust our defense, I trust our pitching. Those guys have been the rock of our team this year.”
That pitching and defense, and enough offense, earned Peninsula at least one more game. Every one from here on out is an elimination game – for the entire 3A field – as only four teams advance to the state tournament in two weeks.
