Photo credit: Matt Acker

Puget Sound Collegiate League baseball championship

Olympia Athletics 5, Hawks Prairie Cardinals 3
Olympia Athletics 14, Hawks Prairie Cardinals 2

Needing two wins to take the PSCL title, the Olympia Athletics scored five runs in the second inning of game one and held on to to beat the Hawks Prairie Cardinals 5-3 to force a game two.

The A’s got on the board first when Brian Clayton (Green River CC) singled to drive in Drew Fosnes (Green River CC) who doubled to lead off the second inning. Bret Bitow (Saint Martin’s) singled in a run and Clayton scored on an error before Dane Cheatly’s (Centralia College) triple cleared the bases and ran the score to 5-0.

The Cardinals slowly chipped away at the lead. Jake Robinett’s (Everett CC) solo home run in the second and Kohei Yamaguchi (Riseisha-Osaka) added another solo shot in the fourth to cut the A’s lead to three. Chris McElderry (Oklahoma Wesleyan, Yelm HS) led off the eighth with a triple and Andy Scott drove him in to make it 5-3 but Sean Murphy (Murray State College) got the final six outs in relief to force a winner-take-all game two.

Fosnes and Clayton each went 3-for-4 in the game and Clayton got the win giving up five hits over seven innings. Scott kept the Cardinals in the game by pitching 7 2/3 scoreless innings in relief of Kyle Diaz (Clackamas CC), who was saddled with the loss.

In game two, the A’s took advantage of the thinned Cardinals pitching staff and scored four runs in the third inning, seven in the fourth and three more in the sixth and won the game and the championship 14-2 in seven innings. Tournament MVP Bitow went 3-for-4 with three runs scored and an RBI. Cheatly and Murphy each also scored three times and drove in two runs. Fosnes, Brandon Christianson (Yakima Valley CC) and Clayton all also had two RBI.

Ryan Olson (Pierce CC) gave up one run on three hits and struck out three Cardinals over 5 1/3 innings to get the win for the A’s. With the pitching staff nearly maxed out because of pitch count rules, Thomas Coyne (Shoreline CC), Mike McCormack (Shoreline CC) and Bitow kept the lead to more than ten runs over the final 1 2/3 innings to force the mercy rule that ended the Cardinals season and set off the A’s celebration.

For a photo gallery of today’s games, click here.