OTHELLO — The Forks 10U team went undefeated and captured the championship as the other Forks and Port Angeles squads were eliminated at the North Washington Babe Ruth softball state tournament.
Forks 10U was a perfect 6-0 in the tourney, outscoring opponents 86-3 through Sunday’s title contest, beating Hoquiam 3-0 in the championship game.
Forks earned the title berth by beating Upper Kittitas 18-0 and host Othello 10-1 on Saturday.
North Olympic of Port Angeles, meanwhile, won’t be bringing any softball hardware home this year.
The North Olympic 10’s was the first to fall Saturday, losing 13-5 to Hoquiam.
While Port Angeles 10U went 0-6 in the tourney, this was a game it was in most of the way, and that took away a bit of the sting.
The Forks 12’s was next to go, as it had to meet the North Olympic 12’s in a loser-out game at mid-day, and North Olympic prevailed 10-4.
North Olympic 12U opened Saturday play by losing 5-1 to unbeaten Bellingham in the morning, but then beat Forks before losing 6-1 to Hoquiam in loser-out games.
In the late game of the day, the Forks 10’s, which had won their first four games convincingly, faced an unexpected challenge as its ace pitcher took a spill getting out of a car, and was considered unlikely for the winner’s bracket final.
Shutting down Othello
Some family persuasion convinced her to give it a try, and she shut down the Othello 10’s for the final four innings as Forks won 10-1 to set up a berth in the state title game.
In Sunday’s 12U finals, Bellingham met Hoquiam for the right to face Upper Kittitas for the championship.
In 10U semifinal play Sunday, Hoquiam beat host Othello to set up another shot at Forks.
But Forks, which had beaten Hoquiam by 10 runs the first time the two teams met, shut out Hoquiam in its closest game of the tournament.
16U championship
In a late start for the 16U state championship, the North Olympic 14U team met 16U Hoquiam because Port Angeles couldn’t put together a 16U team.
The 14U Port Angeles girls found that a good young team had to be perfect to beat the older girls, and in the opening game that was not the case.
Hoquiam shut down North Olympic 15-0 in the first game of a double-elimination tournament between the two teams.
North Olympic played better in the second game but fell 9-2 as Hoquiam earned the state crown.
There were only two entries for the state 16U tournament.
In the first game, North Olympic gave up one big inning, committed some uncharacteristic errors, and had the bats go silent to lose 15-0.
The Hoquiam pitcher threw a great game, but North Olympic just couldn’t get things going offensively.
North Olympic had only two hits and six baserunners for the game. Of Hoquiam’s 15 runs, only six were earned.
North Olympic’s only hits came from its pitchers, Nizhoni Wheeler and Callie Hall.
North Olympic played closer in the second game, losing 9-2.
Facing the same pitcher that shut them down in the first game, North Olympic hitters did much better.
Natalie Steinman led the offensive attack, and finished 3 for 3 for the game.
North Olympic forced Hoquiam to make big plays defensively by hitting the ball hard, but just couldn’t get many runs home.
Nine runners were left stranded in the game.
Defensively, the girls played more soundly, working together and making the routine plays.
The coaches of the North Olympic squad said they are proud of the girls and their stepping up to the challenge of playing in an upper division.
North Olympic is made up of 13 year olds Natalie Steinman, Lauren Lunt, Nizhoni Wheeler, Kylee Reid, Brennan Gray, Callie Hall, Sierra Robinson and Nikki Price, and 14 year olds Hunter Anne Coburn, Ashley Howell and Jaidyn Larson.
