By Joe Slye
It took eight tense innings, but the Kennedy Catholic Lancers boys’ baseball team secured the win on Wednesday, May 10, to advance in the 4A baseball playoffs. A match-up of two teams trying to survive in the tournament “loser-out” bracket, #8 seed Kennedy Catholic beat the #9 seed Union Titans 5-4! Kennedy Catholic moves on to play #4 seed Camas on Saturday, and the season has ended for Union.
Union scored one run in the top of the first inning. Kennedy Catholic matched them with one run in the bottom of the first. Then 6 innings of shutout baseball set the stage for a dramatic extra-inning finish. In the top of inning 8, with the score tied 1-1, Union scored 3 runs. Not what the Lancers hoped to see from the Titans, but this was no time to quit. The Lancers rallied back and produced 4 runs in the bottom of the inning to secure the 5-4 victory. Kennedy Catholic survived a close one to keep their playoff drive alive.
Next up, the Lancers face the Camas Papermakers from Camas, WA, on Saturday, May 13, at 1:00 PM at Heritage Field in Puyallup. The winner of this game advances to the State Tournament next week. The losing team gets one more chance for a State Tournament seed, but it will make for a long day. The loser-out game is at 4:00 PM on Saturday against the loser of the Rogers versus Federal Way game played at 10:00 AM on Saturday. A win in this game secures the seventh-place slot from District 3/4 to the State Tournament. It will be a busy day for baseball at Heritage Field on Saturday!
Camas is coming off an 8-1 win on Wednesday over #12 seed Bellarmine Prep. Camas went into the bottom of inning 4 behind 1-0 and erupted for 7 runs to cruise to their win. Camas travels from the Vancouver, Washington, area and has had a solid 18-5 season. They are a talented team who came into the playoffs as the #4 seed and should provide some stout competition for the Lancers.
