Six teams enter. Two teams go to state and four go home.
It’s softball, Thunderdome-style, in the Class 4A District softball tournament that begins Tuesday at SkyRiver Park in Monroe.
Snohomish, Lake Stevens, Jackson and Monroe have ruled the Wesco 4A all season and represent the tournament’s top four seeds, as well as four of the toughest teams in the state.
“I would take our top four teams against any four in the state, and it’s just kind of a shame that we just get two spots to state,” said Jackson coach Kyle Peacocke, whose Timberwolves play Mount Vernon in their opener Tuesday, with the winner moving on to face Lake Stevens. “All four teams are very evenly matched. We all have the ability to score a bunch of runs in a hurry and we all have good pitching. It’s going to be a battle.”
Monroe takes on Kamiak in the other opening-round contest Tuesday. The winner faces top-seeded Snohomish later in the day.
Snohomish, which posted a 5-1 record against Lake Stevens, Jackson and Monroe during the regular season, is led by the pitching duo of junior Alyssa Simons and freshman Bailey Greenlee.
Panthers coach Lou Kennedy said he split games between the two during the regular season to let each recover from nagging injuries. They are both 100 percent now and Kennedy said he’s free to use either pitcher however the situation demands.
“I like having the options,” he said.
Kennedy said junior right fielder Ame Bridgeman has been on a roll offensively the past few weeks, and he expects her to be a factor in the tournament.
“The last half of the season she’s just been crushing the ball,” he said, “and she doesn’t care who’s pitching.”
Lake Stevens’ offense has been a juggernaut at times, with the Vikings hitting .412 as a team.
The Vikings have gone 4-3 against the other top seeds, and beat Jackson 4-0 Thursday — the third meeting between the teams in 2015 — to secure the No. 2 seed.
“I feel like our kids are peaking at the right time,” Vikings coach Sarah Hirsch said. “They’re seeing pitches well and it only takes one (player) to get going and it’s pretty contagious.”
The Vikings have six players hitting over .400, including senior third baseman Amie Browder, who Hirsch said has performed well in clutch situations late in the season from the No. 7 spot in the lineup.
“She had the start-off hit that got us going in our win over Snohomish and had a big game against Kamiak, where we had to come from behind,” Hirsch said. “She’s in a clutch spot in our order and she’s executed.”
While Snohomish, Lake Stevens and Monroe have used multiple pitchers to great effect during the regular season, Jackson has relied almost exclusively on junior Sophia Frost to pitch its high-leverage innings in 2015.
Frost has done most of the heavy lifting in a season that has seen the Timberwolves go 3-4 against the other top seeds, but three of those losses — one to Jackson, two to Snohomish — came in high-scoring, one-run affairs.
Frost has thrown 76 percent of the Timberwolves’ frames, and has an 11-4 record with a 2.31 earned-run average. She has fanned 141 batters in 97? innings, and opponents are hitting .204 against her.
“(Sophomores) Maddy Podnar and Morgan Mawn have been coming on at the end of the year and we wouldn’t be afraid to use those kids, but Sophia is our ace,” Peacocke said. “She’s just a tough kid; a smart kid that’s going to battle regardless of the situation.”
Frost also gets it done offensively for Jackson, hitting .385 with 33 hits during the regular season, a total that ranks second on the team behind senior catcher Kayla Ellis’ 39.
With Frost, Ellis and freshman utility whiz Sam Mutolo leading the heart of the Jackson batting order, Peacocke said the development of the bottom third of the lineup will pay dividends this week.
“Our three kids that bat 7-8-9, in games where we’ve scored high run totals, have been really instrumental in turning the lineup over,” he said. “It makes it really difficult for pitchers when they don’t get a break after the middle of the lineup.”
Junior third baseman Shayla Hendrickson, junior second baseman Tiana Lopez and junior right fielder Kaylei Werner have served to lengthen the Timberwolves’ lineup and contribute to Jackson’s .414 team batting average.
Monroe has relied heavily on underclassmen this spring, both in the pitcher’s circle and in the lineup.
Freshman McKenzie Schulz has thrown 94 of the Bearcats’ 123 innings, compiling a 9-5 record with a 1.34 ERA and striking out 100 batters.
Sophomore Megan Rybar has thrown all but four of the remaining innings, and could be called upon during the district tournament after serving as Monroe’s primary pitcher as a freshman last season.
But Monroe has gone as Schulz has gone this season, which by coach Mike Birch’s own admission is heady stuff for a freshman.
“We put a lot on her back at the beginning of the season,” Birch said. “There’s a lot on a pitcher. You’re the hero when you win and the goat when you lose. It’s been a learning experience for her, growing and learning to deal with the different pressures of having so much on the line in every high school game. She’s done a great job of that, managing the game and working pitch-to-pitch.”
Monroe went 1-5 against the top three seeds during the regular season, owning a 7-1 win over Lake Stevens.
Sophomore third baseman Kacey Hvitved has been the top offensive threat for the Bearcats this season, batting .516 with four home runs and 21 RBI, both team highs.
Birch said Rybar, who plays center field when she’s not in the circle, has slumped of late despite finishing the regular season with a .419 average. He predicts the sophomore will rebound in districts.
“She’s a really strong offensive player,” Birch said. “I expect her to turn it around in this tournament.”
Class 3A
When Everett and Meadowdale squared off April 22, with the Seagulls eking out a 6-5 win, it was a matchup of the two clear frontrunners for the 3A District title, with both teams winning their respective Wesco 3A divisions.
Few would be surprised to see a rematch in Thursday night’s championship at Phil Johnson Ballfields with a top seed to state on the line.
The top three district finishers advance and all eight teams in the bracket play twice Tuesday, win or lose.
The Seagulls (19-1) and Mavericks (18-2) are both strong offensive teams with two effective pitchers, but the specifics on how they get the job done vary. Everett is more likely to move runners along and use its team speed to be aggressive on the basepaths, while Meadowdale has succeeded with raw power.
“We’re just trying to do what we’ve been doing all season long — being aggressive, putting the ball in play and keeping pressure on the defense,” Everett coach Mike Millar said. “We want to do whatever we need to do to constantly put pressure on the defense.”
Everett’s Sydney Taggart and Rachel Christensen are hitting .529 and .528, respectively, this season and have combined for 66 RBI, which is nearly 40 percent of the team’s total.
The Mavericks, by contrast, have hit 40 home runs.
Junior pitcher/first baseman Julia Reuble leads the way with eight, but 10 of Meadowdale’s 11 varsity players have left the yard at least once in 2015.
“We work on our hitting quite a bit in practice and we like the way our hitters look at the ball,” Meadowdale coach Dennis Hopkins said. “We always just try to go for base hits and to hit it to the gaps and behind the runner, but the balls have just happened to go over the fence.”
Everett’s Taggart and Erin Gordon, both juniors, have combined on roughly a 60-40 split of the team’s innings in the circle this season and Millar said the two right-handers attack hitters in different ways.
“Syd has a little bit more velocity and Erin really pitches to contact, but they both have really good changeups and both have pretty good movement,” Millar said. “Syd is more of a strikeout pitcher and Erin makes you string together hits.”
Meadowdale uses Reuble and fellow junior Sam Gregoryk in the circle, and they present different looks to opposing batters, with Reuble being a right-hander and Gregoryk a southpaw.
“We’re feeling pretty confident about our pitching,” Hopkins said. “Both Julia or Sam could go the distance on any given day and both have a full list of pitches they can throw. We feel that we have enough of a book on the teams we might play since we’ve pitched against them before, but districts are a whole new ballgame.”
Class 2A
Cascade Conference regular-season champion Cedarcrest is the No. 2 seed and runner-up Archbishop Murphy is the No. 4 seed to the 2A District Tournament that begins Wednesday at Janicki Fields in Sedro-Woolley.
Both the Red Wolves (17-3) and Wildcats (14-6) appear to have what it takes to be among the four seeds that advance to the state tournament if they play to their potential.
Cedarcrest coach Chris Gastelum said his team has been on a steady upward trend all season, with its best softball still ahead of it.
“We’re doing a lot of really good things on both sides of the ball, but we strive for consistency in our work ethic and consistency in our play,” he said.
The Red Wolves use a trio of underclassman pitchers, with sophomore Morgan Brown the elder statesman alongside freshmen Lauren Rich and Cassidy Derieg.
Brown or Derieg typically starts games for the Red Wolves, with Rich serving as the closer. But Gastelum knows that any formula can go out the window quickly in the postseason.
“When any of the three get the ball, they go as long and as hard as they possibly can, and their teammates are there to pick them up. We work as a staff, and they’ve all embraced it.”
On offense, five Cedarcrest regulars are hitting better than .400, and Elaine Townley leads the squad with 25 RBI.
“We don’t try to do anything crazy,” Gastelum said. “We just try to get a good pitch that we can hit hard for the situation we’re in.”
For Archbishop Murphy, sophomore catcher and team co-captain Alyson Matriotti is the engine that pulls the train.
A terror on the basepaths, Matriotti commonly turns singles into doubles and doubles into triples, and has an absolute green light to run on her own from coach Stephanie Harmon.
“Other coaches have made comments about how she only slows down on the bases when there’s someone on in front of her,” Harmon said of Matriotti, who plays the middle infield on her select teams but catches for Murphy. “She’s an amazing catcher and amazing player and person overall. The girls look up to her and everyone would love to have a player like her.”
Gastelum calls Matriotti, who was named the Cascade Conference’s Co-Offensive MVP as a freshman in 2014, “one of the most talented softball players I’ve seen in a long time.”
Harmon said the Wildcats, who have no seniors, haven’t hit as well in the past few games as she would like, but if the offense rebounds and junior pitcher Baylee Robertson stays consistent, Archbishop Murphy can make a deep postseason run.
“I told the girls (Friday) that everyone has a two-game season ahead of them, and we just have to win two games out of the next couple of days.”
Class 1A
Sophomore shortstop Bethany Kirkpatrick and senior first baseman Belle Ellis have both had sterling seasons for Sultan, but the Turks’ hopes to be one of three teams to advance to state from the 1A District Tournament this week at Janicki Fields rest largely on the shoulders of Shelby Jeffries.
The junior pitcher dominates for Sultan in a way few individuals do anywhere in the region. At the plate, Jeffries is hitting .537 with 11 home runs and 29 RBI and possesses a staggering 1.240 slugging percentage.
As a pitcher, Jeffries has pitched all but six innings for Sultan, striking out 212 batters in 119? innings on her way to a 1.47 ERA and a 9-11 record, which is also the team’s mark.
Class 2B
Darrington is the third seed in a four-team district tournament with only the champion clinching a state berth.
The Loggers play Friday Harbor at 3 p.m. Thursday at Stanwood High School.
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