Southridge secures spot in 3A state baseball semifinals

Jake Harvey has never been to a major league baseball game, let alone Safeco Field.

Can’t do much to help him with the first part, but Harvey and the Southridge Suns beat O’Dea 8-6 on Saturday at Pasco High School to punch their return ticket to the semifinals, which will be held next Friday and Saturday at Safeco Field in Seattle.

“The closest I’ve been to Safeco is driving by on the freeway,” Harvey said. “This is exciting. We had a tough game against Kamiakin, they hit the ball hard. After that, we mellowed out.”

The Suns (22-4), who beat Kamiakin 6-3 in their first game, will play Mercer Island in the semifinals at 4 p.m. Friday.

“This is why in November you are conditioning,” Suns coach Tim Sanders said. “And in January when you get open gym. You do it to get to this day. If you don’t do it, you don’t get here.”

Southridge, which led 8-1 after four innings, was in danger of losing out on a trip to Seattle as the Fighting Irish scored three runs in the fifth inning and two more in the sixth.

Wyatt Hull, who pitched the first five innings for the Suns, gave the ball to Mason Martin in the sixth.

Martin closed things out, getting Marques Titialii looking at strike three to end the game.

“It’s a high-pressure situation,” Martin said. “I trusted my teammates. I wanted to get it done for my team.”

The Suns were methodical to start the game, getting one run in each of the first three innings.

In the fourth, they exploded for five runs, including a two-run double by Nick Grade and a two-run single by Brendan Tool. Lane Hailey also drove in a run to help Southridge to an 8-1 lead.

O’Dea put up three runs in the fifth, taking advantage of two Southridge errors and an RBI single by Gabe Orint.

“You knew those guys are going to come at us at the end of the game,” Sanders said. “They saw a crack and got some momentum. We have to clean up some boo-boos.”

Leadoff hitter Dominique Gates pulled the Fighting Irish to within 8-6 in the sixth with a two-run double.

“Nobody takes this game for granted,” said Martin, who also had two double and drove in a run. “Not with a trip to Seattle on the line. No one was giving up. We reset after that (sixth inning) and pulled it out. Playing at Safeco will be fun. We have a few seniors on this team — it will be awesome.”

O’Dea, which advanced with a 9-4 victory over Timberlake earlier in the day, got two doubles and two RBIs from Gates, and two solid innings of relief from Joey Butler.

Butler, who got the last two outs of the fourth, shut the Suns down in the fifth and sixth, allowing just a single to Hailey.

“He had good stuff,” said Harvey, who got caught looking at strike three in the fifth inning. “He had a good curveball.

SOUTHRIDGE 6, KAMIAKIN 3: Harvey went the distance on the mound and overcame four errors on the defense, and Martin’s two-RBI single wound up scoring three runs in the third as the Suns rebounded from a slow start for the first-round win.

Martin’s single scored Casey Proctor and Noah Weber, and Harvey wound up coming around on the play as well. It erased Kamiakin’s early 2-0 lead, and the Suns went up 4-2 one out later when Sergio Midili’s single scored Martin.

Tyson Brown homered for the Braves in the bottom of the frame to make it a one-run game, but Kamiakin wouldn’t score again. A sacrifice fly by Harvey and an RBI single from Hailey in the fourth cemented the Suns’ lead.

This story was originally published May 20, 2017 at 8:39 PM with the headline "Southridge secures spot in 3A state baseball semifinals."