By Michael Carman
Peninsula Daily News
RICHLAND — The Olympic Crosscutters’ run at the American Legion A State Tournament ended a game short of the state championship in a 6-1 semifinal loss to the West Kootenay Orioles (British Columbia).
Olympic allowed five first-inning runs but played undefeated West Kootenay evenly there after.
West Kootenay had 10-runned its first three opponents at the state tournament.
“We played a really good team from Canada and we struggled in the first inning,” Crosscutters coach Anthony Koeninger said. “A lot of it was nerves. Those five runs, four of them were unearned on errors. After that we really did play well the rest of the way. Our defense responded. We got on base, we just couldn’t execute offensively.”
Trenton Indelicato had two doubles to lead the Olympic attack, while Dalton Kilmer and Elijah Flodstrom each collected two hits.
“I was impressed with how they played under pressure in the heat,” Koeninger said.
Olympic’s two state losses came to the two teams playing for the state championship, West Kootenay and the Hanford Flames.
With only one other A-level American Legion squad in its division, Olympic faced mostly AA opponents this summer.
“To finish that high is really impressive for how young this team is,” Koeninger said.
“Most of the kids will be playing together for the next few years going forward. I think they grew a great deal this summer and became better ballplayers.”
West Kootenay 6, Olympic Crosscutters 1
Olym 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 — 1 9 3
Koot 5 0 0 0 0 1 X — 6 8 0
LP: Indelicato
Pitching
Olympic — Indelicato 4.1IP, 8H, Woodley 1.2IP, ER, 4BB.
Hitting
Olympic — Kilmer 2-4; Flodstrom 2-3, BB; Indelicato 2-2, 2 2B, BB; Burkhardt 1-2, BB, RBI; Robinson 1-3, 2B; Dujue 1-2;
