Kennewick baseball team starts national tournament with a 2-0 record

The Kennewick American 12-year-olds got off to a 2-0 start over the weekend at the Cal Ripken National Invitational baseball tournament in Branson, Mo.

On Saturday, Kennewick beat a team from Arkansas 15-1.

Then on Sunday, Kennewick edged Norwalk, Conn., 3-2 in 9 innings.

That gives the Tri-City team first place so far in the Pool B standings of the tournament, which was held as an invitational to salvage some type of baseball this year in the pandemic.

Last year, this same group of Kennewick Americans rolled to the Pacific Northwest regional championship for Cal Ripken 11-year-olds.

Unfortunately, that’s as far as the team could go, as Cal Ripken Baseball does not have a World Series for 11-year-olds.

But, the organization does give regional champions in the 11-year-old division an invitation to play in the 12-year-old World Series the following year — and Kennewick American accepted that invitation to play this year.

Then COVID-19 hit, and the resulting pandemic pretty much stopped all play of youth baseball around the country.

Cal Ripken Baseball announced the canceling of all World Series for the various age groups.

It wasn’t until last month that organizers in Branson offered up the invitational tournament. Parents of Kennewick American players, and league officials, decided that as long as health guidelines were used, the team would go to Missouri.

In Saturday’s pool-play win over Arkansas, Kennewick’s Karson Rawlings was 3-for-3 with 4 RBIs, while teammate Dre Dimond was 2-for-3 with an RBI triple.

Kennewick starter Taron Carlson tossed three hitless innings and gave up just an unearned run.

Morgan Dodson added a two-run single for Kennewick.

In Sunday’s win over Norwalk, Trayce Teagle was the star, going 4 innings on the mound with just an unearned run. He also had an RBI single in the top of the ninth.

Dylan Mamiya pitched 3 scoreless innings for Kennewick, and Deegan Quesenberry closed out the last two innings, striking out two batters.

Here are the standings in Pool B through Sunday’s games: Kennewick 2-0; Norwalk, Conn., 3-1; Springfield, Mo., 2-1; Arkansas 1-3; Parsons, Kan., 0-3.

Pool A standings: Branson 3-0; Carthage, Mo., 2-1; Florence, Ala., 2-1; Galesburg, Ill., 1-3; Denver 0-3.

Kennewick has a pool-play doubleheader Monday, with games against Parsons, Kan., and Springfield, Mo.

The team has a crossover game against Branson on Tuesday before bracket play starts on Thursday.

NHL update

It feels strange to say this now that we’re near mid-August, but let the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin.

The final 16 teams are set with their best-of-seven, first-round match-ups that begin Tuesday, and there are still six former Tri-City Americans in the mix.

Dylan Coghlan has yet to play, but he’s on the Vegas Golden Knights roster and they open Tuesday against the Chicago Blackhawks.

Juuso Valimaki and the Calgary Flames will take on the Dallas Stars in their series.

Boston plays an Eastern Conference series in Toronto against the Carolina Hurricanes. Former Am Brandon Carlo is part of the Bruins’ top defensive line, while the Hurricanes have Jake Bean and Morgan Geekie.

Geekie, in fact, earned his first playoff point ever with an assist during Carolina’s series win over the New York Rangers.

But it’s been former Tri-City goalie Carey Price who has shined the most, as he helped the Montreal Canadiens beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 3 games to 1 to advance to the first round.

Price was a wall in net as he had a 1.67 goals against average in the four-game series.

Now he’ll try to repeat that performance in a best-of-seven set against the Philadelphia Flyers.

Notes

• Last week, the Big Sky Conference presidents announced that the league will play conference football games in the spring. Teams can play non-conference games — up to three — in the fall.

There has been no decision announced yet on any of the other fall sports, such as volleyball and women’s soccer, as of Monday.

• Kennewick High senior-to-be Gavin Mattson has signed to play baseball for Yakima Valley Community College, beginning in the fall of 2021.

• The latest Sports in the Tri podcasts are out, with interviews with Richland’s Ben Fewel and Kamiakin’s Woodley Downard. You can find the podcasts on ParkerHodge.com.

• For the second consecutive year, Kennewick’s Therese Warner made it to the match play portion of the U.S. Women’s Amateur.

Last week at the tournament at the Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md., the Southridge High graduate qualified for match play by shooting 74 and 76 in stroke play, then getting through a playoff involving 15 golfers for six match-play berths.

Warner, who will be a sophomore at the University of Arizona, lost her first-round match 2-up to Rachel Heck of Memphis, Tenn.

• Last week I mentioned former Tri-City Dust Devils manager Ben Fritz getting a promotion to be the bullpen coach for the San Diego Padres.

Reader John Swanson let me know I missed three other former Tri-City Northwest League managers who are with big-league teams.

Ron Gideon is now the first base coach for the Colorado Rockies, while Stu Cole is the Rockies’ third-base coach. Both have been in the Colorado system for years. So was the Dust Devils organization for a number of seasons.

The third guy is Pat Murphy, who was a player-coach for the Tri-City Triplets back in the mid-1980s when the team played its home games at Richland High School.

Murphy pitched, but after affiliated baseball, he went on to become the head coach at Notre Dame and then Arizona State.

He found his way back into affiliated ball, and has been the bench coach for the Milwaukee Brewers for manager Craig Counsell, who played for Murphy at Notre Dame.

Two weeks ago during a workout at Miller Park, Murphy suffered a heart attack. But the team doctor happened to be the stadium that day and tended to Murphy quickly.

He is now on the mend.

• Othello’s Azusena Guerra has signed a letter of intent to run track for Bushnell University (the former Northwest Christian University).

• Richland High senior-to-be Kainoa Steward, a linebacker and running back, has received an offer to play football for the University of Puget Sound.