ANACORTES — Wilder Junior began pool play at the Anacortes Wood Bat Tournament on a roll after an 8-0 six-inning mercy-rule shutout of East Valley of Yakima on Saturday.
The win guarantees Wilder a spot in today’s 3:30 p.m. championship game.
The area squad swept a doubleheader Friday, dropping the Bellingham A’s 3-2 and besting host Anacortes 9-0.
Wilder Junior will face Sedro-Woolley in their final pool play game at 10:30 a.m. today, but the outcome won’t impact the championship game game because Wilder has already defeated the two remaining one-loss teams, which gives it the tiebreaker advantage.
Wilder starting pitcher Alex Morris scattered two hits and two walks in five innings on the mound against East Valley, striking out three.
Daniel Harker came on in relief and pitched a perfect sixth inning with two strikeouts to combine with Morris on the shutout.
Wilder pieced together a string of base hits as the team pushed five across to break a scoreless tie in the bottom of the fourth inning.
“It’s wood bat baseball so there’s a lot of base hits,” Qualls said.
All of the team’s 13 hits were singles.
Nigel Christian led off the fourth with a single, with more hits, all singles coming from Lane Dotson, Morris, Gavin Velarde and Jansen Pederson.
Christian ended up 2 for 3 with an RBI, Ian Dennis was 2 for 4 with a run, Austin Hilliard was 1 for 3 with an RBI, Morris was 1 for 3 with an RBI and James Thayer brought home the game-ending run in the bottom of the sixth.
Against Bellingham, Pederson went four innings on the mound, allowing two hits and a walk and striking out two.
Pederson, Christian and Adam Iseri-Fuji all had hits and scored the team’s runs.
In the win against Anacortes, Christian had two hits, including a double, and scored two runs.
Harker had an RBI double and scored a run.
