Sunday, May. 31, 2009

Richland baseball enjoys one for the road

By Kevin Anthony, Herald staff writer

SEATTLE -- The numbers didn't add up to a state title -- fewer hits, more errors.

But in true "greater than the sum of their parts" fashion, the Richland Bombers made baseball history Saturday night ... again.

The Bombers turned three hits, two errors and four walks into just enough offense to scrape by Puyallup 4-3 in the 4A state championship at Safeco Field, becoming the first team in the 3A or 4A ranks to win three state titles in five years.

"This one's the best," said senior shortstop Brett Jacobs, who along with Jamison Rowe and Cody Shepherd started on Richland's last state champion in 2007. Each of those three has won six state titles from Little League on up.

"This is how we wanted to go out," Jacobs continued. "There's nothing better."

Kyle Stumetz went all seven innings for the Bombers, giving up seven hits -- some of them pretty hard -- but only walking one.

"After that first inning, when I threw up a zero, I knew it was going to be a good game," the senior lefty said.

No other big school team has won three titles in less than eight years (Issaquah in 2000, '04 and '07 on the 3A side).

"I'm the luckiest guy alive," said coach Ben Jacobs, who won his fourth title. "That I would get four in my career -- I had no idea that I was ever destined for that."

Top-ranked Richland (24-2) managed just three singles by Jacobs, Shepherd and sophomore designated hitter Zach Rapacz and also committed three errors against the Vikings (21-4), who earned their first state trophy in 15 postseason berths.

But the wildness of Puyallup's pitchers made all the difference.

The Vikings were asking for trouble from the start, giving the always-dangerous Rowe a free pass to start the game.

Rowe, of course, promptly stole second, moved up to third on a passed ball and scored on Daniel Jacobs' chopper to second.

Back-to-back walks to the Jacobs cousins with one out in the third were enough juice to hot-wire Richland's only other outburst. Shepherd followed with an RBI single, and then Josh Rapacz's hopper to third was a tough handle and left the fielder no chance to get the runner charging home.

Shepherd came home on a passed ball, giving the Bombers their final run. But the hit totals were of no consequence compared to the runs.

"I'll take a no-hitter and winning 1-0," Rowe said. "We got our 'ship, and that's what matters."

It was enough for Stumetz.

After getting hit around a bit and giving up a run in the second and third innings, he found a good rhythm in the fourth and fifth.

Puyallup got to him again in the sixth, but Stumetz got the out he needed in that inning against the second batter he faced, No. 3 hitter Sal Arena.

Back in the third, Arena blasted a ball the other way that looked like it would be deposited behind the KeyBank sign. But right fielder Chris Cecil, who fought off a tough sun Friday, tracked the ball into his glove as he crashed into the padded wall.

This time, Stumetz struck out Arena on three pitches to get two quick outs in the sixth. So when Tyler Peterson and Joe Leinweber followed with a double and a hard-hit single, the damage was minimal.

After filling up the count to No. 6 hitter Robbie Ingram, Stumetz induced a grounder to Brett Jacobs, and Shepherd made a nice stretch at first to get out of the inning.

Stumetz got an unorthodox 1-2-3 seventh -- giving up a single but picking off the runner on a major baserunning blunder -- and then the celebration was on.

"Coming out for that last inning," Stumetz said, "there was no way I wasn't going to do it."

The accomplishments of this group of nine seniors are prolific, with seven of them playing in the 2003 Little League World Series and many of them on the Twin City Titans that played in the American Legion World Series last summer.

But this, they said, trumps all that.

"It was the biggest game in the seniors lives," said Rowe. "Bigger than the world series, bigger than legion."

And it was a historic.