Mount Si seniors Chase Kairis (left) and Connor Swift (right) are seen here as they got ready to take their dates to the Mount Si High School prom last night in Seattle. The two Wildcat baseball starting pitchers both threw very well yesterday, helping Mount Si make it back to the state baseball semifinals for the second time in three years. (Courtesy photo)

Mount Si opened the day with a first-round matchup against North Thurston. Things started out well enough, as senior pitcher Chase Kairis shut down the Rams bats for the first five-plus innings and the Wildcats were able to take advantage of North Thurston mistakes, but after the Rams tied it in the sixth, things got interesting. Real interesting.

Mount Si overcame that bump in the road, and some controversy, and posted a dramatic win thanks to hustle and heart.

With the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the seventh, Nick Adams hit a ground ball to short and Brian Woolley, who had been on first, reached second base safely ahead of an attempted force out to score Joey Cotto and give the Wildcats the 3-2 victory. “We battled the whole game,” said an elated Mount Si coach Zach Habben.

The bases loaded situation was set up largely by a controversial incident at the plate during the at-bat for Evan Johnson. With two strikes, Johnson swung and missed for the third strike and what should have been the third out, but NT catcher Matt Zeutenhorst dropped the ball, allowing Johnson a chance to go to first. Johnson appeared to have contact with the dropped ball, but umpires ruled it to be a live ball, with no batter’s interference. This infuriated several Rams players and coaches, but none were ejected from the contest. The Wildcat senior reached first safely, then Woolley walked to load the bases for Adams, who knew what he wanted to see from North Thurston pitcher Tyler Ridgeway.

“He was throwing pretty well and I was just kind of sitting there waiting for a curveball,” Adams said, and the Wildcat hitter hit a ground ball which hopped up quite high in the air, and the Rams’ shortstop fielded it and threw it to second base in an attempt to get the out, but Woolley slid in underneath the tag and that allowed Cotto to score from third base with the winning run, much to the surprise and elation of the large Mount Si fan section, which enveloped most of the seating behind home plate and all of the bleacher sections on the first base side at Bannerwood Park.

The dramatic finish overshadowed what was a very strong outing from Kairis, who took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, and finished with a two-hit complete game effort, in which he walked just three and struck out four. The two runs he gave up were both unearned, allowing his earned run average to drop to 1.39, keeping him among the best on the Eastside. “Just wanted to go out there, pound the strike zone, (and) throw strikes. Wanted to make sure I could locate all my pitches,” Kairis said. “He’s been doing a good job all year,” Habben said.

Kairis told the SVSJ he has a few offers from colleges, but is looking at going to a community college this fall. “I want to work my way up,” he said. His CC of interest appears to be Skagit Valley up in Mount Vernon.

After the game, the Mount Si team was treated to a nice lunch on the field, then following that, they got right back to work and played upstart Meadowdale from Lynnwood for the regional crown; the Wesco’s Mavericks pulled the upset of the first round at any of the regionals, downing a strong Peninsula team in the early semifinal to earn their regional final spot. And the boys from up north did their best to challenge the dominant Wildcat side, but a big inning from Mount Si proved to be the difference, and off to the Tri-Cities go the ‘Cats after getting it done once again.

After Meadowdale tied the game with a run each in the third and fourth innings following two early Mount Si runs, the Wildcats scored five runs in the fifth and then rode the strong arm of Connor Swift the rest of the way and delivered a 7-2 win.

A Connor Jensen double that scored two runs keyed the fifth-inning onslaught; he finished 2-4 with the two RBI’s and a run scored, and he also had two hits, with a double, in the win over North Thurston. Swift pitched a solid seven innings, giving up two runs – one earned – on seven hits, striking out three, and dropping his ERA to 2.42, also very strong. Look for Mount Si to be in a great position to win the whole thing next weekend with Swift and Kairis on the mound.

Breshears went 3-4 to lead the Wildcats in the victory over the Mavericks; he also scored two runs.

After the game, many of the Wildcats, Swift and Kairis included, went home to get ready for prom, and they were all on cloud nine, that’s for sure. Mount Si is slated to meet West Seattle in the semifinals next Friday at 10am at GESA Stadium in Pasco, and there should be a live webcast of the contest available; more information on that will be available during the upcoming week.

Mount Si’s boys and girls teams both fared well at the SeaKing District meet in Seattle, and will both have athletes at the 3A meet at Mount Tahoma High School. The Wildcat boys finished fourth as a team, with the girls taking second. Both Mount Si teams had one district event winner – the boys was in the javelin, where Brad Stevens scored a district title toss of 187 feet flat to move on to the state meet, and the ladies’ event winner was in the discus, where Andrea Suttle barely cleared 94 feet with her toss to take top spot and also move on to Tacoma.

Other strong showings were seen by the girls’ 4×200 and 4×400 relay teams, who both finished as runners-up in their races. Karlie Hurley and Mackenzie Hutchison are part of both teams, and are joined by Hannah Richmond and Jesse Guyer in the 4×200 unit, and Madeleine Hutchison and Pauline Kaczmarek on the 4×400 crew. All of them will be at state next week. Preston Banks and Sam Isen both appear headed to state in the boys’ 400m, as Banks took second and Isen grabbed a third place spot. Also finishing third on the boys’ side in events were Jon Proctor in the high jump and Jimbo Davis in the pole vault. Suttle, in addition to her discus win, took third in the shot put with a toss of just over 33 feet.

The Cedarcrest boys and girls went to Bellingham for the Northwest 2A District meet, and the guys had a good showing, with a sixth-place team finish, while the girls took 12^th overall. Leading the boys was senior Luke Driscoll, who will be at the state 2A meet in two events – the 200m and 400m. Driscoll won the 400m with a time of 49.77 seconds and took runner up in the 200m clocking 22.58. Quinn Radbourne and Logan Orndorf both saw third place finishes for the Red Wolves in events – Radbourne took his third in the 800m and Orndorf grabbed his in the 3200m.

The ladies only had six event finalists, and the best finish out of those was in the 3200m, where Olivia Waterman finished fifth, clocking 11:33.55.

The state meets for the 2A and 3A classes will be in Tacoma next weekend.

We start at 1:00, rain permitting, with round one, Mount Si against North Thurston.

WIAA 3A State Baseball Regionals – Round One
Mount Si Wildcats vs. North Thurston Rams, Bannerwood Park, Bellevue, first pitch 1:00 p.m. (L/O)

The Wildcats come in off a Kingco title, winning that last Friday on this same Bannerwood field, 3-2 over Bellevue. Mount Si was rewarded with a first-round date against the West Central District’s #3 seed, which is North Thurston, after the team from Lacey won the third-place game at their district tournament last weekend.

Mount Si is 16-5 and ranked sixth in the Washingtonbaseballpoll.com’s state 3A poll, while NT is 19-6 and ranked fourth in that same poll. So on paper, this looks to be a good matchup, and one that for the Wildcats will be tough. The Rams have had a very good season thus far, coming in on a strong streak, winning eight of their past nine games, after having had a second eight-game win streak earlier in the season. We don’t know a heckuva lot about NT, but did link for you earlier this week, and are linking again here, a Youtube clip of one of their top players, Ande Grantham, taking swings in a batting cage down that way last fall. Grantham has reportedly committed, according to a message in that Youtube post’s comments section, to play football this fall at Pacific University, a D-III school in Oregon. We here want to offer him and his family congratulations on that decision, and wish Grantham all the best on the gridiron this fall.

With the Rams being a pretty hot team, that means Mount Si will need to be at the top of its game. We look for either Connor Swift or Chase Kairis to take the hill in this first game, and both of them should be in good shape. Kairis comes in with a 7-1 record and a 1.59 earned run average, while Swift is 5-1 with his lone loss being opening day in the Tri-Cities, and an ERA of 2.66. The Wildcats’ top hitter will need to be on his game as well. Evan Johnson is hitting a torrid .456 and has two homers and 22 runs batted in.

Both teams have had a week off – Mount Si’s last game was last Friday, NT’s was last Saturday, so both teams should be fresh and healthy for today’s game.

We look for this game to be one where the team that sets the tempo first should have the best chance to win, and that could favor North Thurston, as they have been consistently good all season long. Mount Si has also been good, but they have had their bumps along the way.

This will be a close game for sure, but Mount Si is the home team, so they will have the last at-bats, and if they can get the right hitters up at the right time, they may end up ekeing this one out.

MOUNT SI 3, NORTH THURSTON 2

With that out of the way, the Wildcats would then go at 4:00 for the regional crown, against either Peninsula or Meadowdale. Based on what we saw of Peninsula when they were up here in the Valley for that rain-shortened, then rained-out, game at Mount Si back in April, we look for the Seahawks to advance out of that first-round game and make it to the finals.

The Wildcats will have their hands full against Peninsula, who had some solid hitters in that contest back in April. Peninsula was up 4-1 in that game against Mount Si when the rains hit, so the Seahawks know what to expect. Whoever of Kairis or Swift does not get the call on the mound in game one for the Wildcats will get this game, so Peninsula will be seeing a different pitcher for sure, as Mount Si did not pitch either of those two in that April contest.

The winner of that game advances to the state finals next weekend in the Tri-Cities.

The first Wildcat to grab a berth was freshman Caitlin Maralack, who finished in a tie for second, firing an 82 at Riverbend Golf Course back on Monday to tie for the runner-up spot with Interlake’s Aleana Groenhout. Both golfers finished two shots back of winner Libby Ramsey from Lakeside.

Wildcat junior Tabitha Dorn also clinched a spot to state, carding a 92 to finish in a tie for 14th. Senior Danielle Burns also has a chance to go, as an alternate. Burns carded a 96 to finish in a tie for 20th, but fell in a playoff for that final slot. Burns started out well on the front nine, but struggled on the back nine to end up in her spot. She will get in if another SeaKing golfer is unable to compete.

The state tournament is next Tuesday and Wednesday in Woodland. Tee times for round one have already been announced, with Maralack going out on the course just before 8:00am with Groenhout and Hanford’s Lacy Skwarek, and Dorn hitting the links at 9:30am sharp with Seattle Prep’s Melissa Dickenson and Mount Spokane’s Caitlin Spencer. We’ll have full updates for you on the event next week here.

Cedarcrest also sends two girls to state golf
The Red Wolves also will have two representatives competing in the state girls’ 2A tournament next week after making it through districts. Amanda Fairbanks and Caitlin Brenner both earned berths, and will be competing right after one another to start round one next Tuesday in Spanaway. Fairbanks hits the links just after 12:30 p.m., while Brenner will head out in the group after Fairbanks’ threesome tees off.

Down 4-3 in the seventh, Bainbridge rallied to tie with a run in that inning to force extra innings, then scored once more in the eighth to hand Mount Si a 5-4 loss in a loser-out game at the SeaKing District Tournament in Seattle. The Wildcats, with the loss, miss out on state, which they had been a part of the past two seasons.

Celine Fowler went 3-5 to lead Mount Si, and Tamarra Crowe, Lauren Smith and Paige Wetherbee all had two hits each to pace the Wildcats. Wetherbee went the distance in the circle, giving up all five runs, four of which were earned, on 15 hits, walking two and striking out eight.

For Smith and Crowe, it was their last high school game, as both will be graduating and moving on to college. Mount Si, though, returns a full group next season, with Fowler, Rachael Picchena and Britney Stevens leading what will be a strong senior class.

The Wildcats’ final record was 15-9 this season.

The Wildcats opened play at Lower Woodland Park in Seattle with a quick 10-0 rout of Ingraham. Paige Wetherbee and Bayley Barnett combined on a one-hitter, as Mount Si pounded out 15 hits. Wetherbee, Britney Stevens, Tamarra Crowe, Rachael Picchena, Nikki and Jenny Carroll all had two hits each. Crowe had a double as part of her efforts, and drove in four runs to lead the Wildcats.

Mount Si fell to Holy Names last night 7-6 in a winner-to-state game to move into the loser out round where they meet Bainbridge today at 2:00. The Wildcats will need to win this game and win a second at 4:00 to advance to state.

Also, Cedarcrest fell twice in the Northwest District tournament yesterday, to Lynden and Lakewood, and were eliminated from the postseason.

Cedarcrest High School has announced dates for summer camps sponsored by their football, volleyball, soccer and cheer programs. Information to follow after the break, and registration forms for all of these camps, along with the ones for their basketball camps we had for you here last week, are at CHS’ school website, linked at right in our news links.

Volleyball
The Red Wolves’ volleyball program will be hosting their camp from July 1-3 at Cedarcrest’s gymnasium, 29000 NE 150th St. in Duvall. There are three sessions scheduled, with each session geared for different grade levels from grades 2-12. The sessions are as follows:

-Grades 2-5 (Elementary, session 1): 9-11am
-Grades 6-8 (Middle, session 2): Noon-3pm
-Grades 6-12 (Middle/High/Setters Clinic): 3:30-5pm

For either session 1 or 2, it’s $65, session 3 is $30, and sessions 2 and 3 are $90. Checks are payable to Cedarcrest High School.

The camps will help teach players the fundamentals of volleyball, and will focus on such skills as footwork, passing, setting, arm swing, and conditioning, all designed to help players improve their games to prepare them for high school volleyball or youth club volleyball at the Puget Sound Region level.

Session three is a “Setters Clinic” where setting will be the featured skill worked on. For more information on the camp, call Cedarcrest head coach Kelsey Fish at (509)881-0020 or email at sunfish7712@gmail.com. Campers are advised to bring court appropriate shoes and a water bottle marked with your name.

Soccer
CHS’ boys’ and girls’ soccer camp will be held July 8-10, at Cedarcrest High School’s stadium, 29000 NE 150th St. in Duvall. The sessions, to be held 9:30am-noon, are open to boys and girls grades K-8. The camps will instruct young players the skills and fundamentals they will need in order to help them succeed in youth soccer. Campers will be grouped by age and skill level, and it is anticipated a ratio of five players for one coach will occur, providing for more individualized instruction.

If you register by June 21, it is $60 to enroll your child in this camp; after that it will cost $70 to participate. Costs include a free t-shirt. Campers are asked to bring proper footwear, shin guards, shorts, sweatshirt and other weather-appropriate clothing, a water bottle and a soccer ball with the player’s name on it. Checks are payable to CHS Soccer, and for more information, contact boys’ soccer coach Zack Pittis at the high school.

Football
The Red Wolves’ football camp will be held July 15-18, also at CHS’ stadium. There will be two sessions, split up by age level, for players ages 7-15:

-Session 1 (ages 7-11): 4-6pm
-Session 2 (ages 12-15): 6-8pm

Each session costs $85 (checks payable to Cedarcrest High School), and will teach young football players the skills and techniques they will need to help them succeed on the gridiron this fall. Such things as proper tackling and blocking techniques, stance and starting positions, and proper use of equipment will be discussed. The camp is a non-contact camp. Campers will be taught by members of the Cedarcrest High School football program, led by head coach Jason Frederick.

If you have questions, contact Frederick at (425) 844-4809. Campers are asked to wear proper footwear, such as field-turf approved football cleats.

Cheer
CHS’ cheer camp will also take place July 15-18, but will be inside the school’s gymnasium. Sessions are for grades K-8, and are split up by age level:

-Elementary (grades K-4): 4-5:30pm
-Middle (grades 5-8): 6-8pm

The camp costs $65, with checks payable to CHS. The fee includes a T-shirt if you send your check in by July 1. Campers will learn all the cheers, chants and dances that will help them prepare for their performances during games this fall. All campers will get a chance to show off their stuff at a CHS home football game this fall.

Campers are asked to being water and wear appropriate clothing and shoes. No jewelry is allowed in the camp.

For more information, contact Jackie Boak at boakja@riverview.wednet.edu.

Mount Si advanced to its third straight state tournament after winning the Kingco title last Friday night at Bannerwood Park, and their run to another state title begins this weekend, also at Bannerwood, in the state regionals. The Wildcats will be meeting the North Thurston Rams from Lacey, who finished as the West Central/Southwest District’s #3 seed after winning the third-place game at their district tournament last Saturday.

The Rams are a member of the Narrows League and come in with a 19-6 record. NT, though, has been very hot, as of late, winning eight out of their last nine, so that could be trouble for a Wildcat team that, while it’s been successful much of the season, has had its bumps in the road along the way.

We unfortunately aren’t able to get you stats on top players from NT, but do have video of one of them here. This is of outfielder Ande Grantham, hitting last fall in a batting cage down that way. Not sure what Mount Si fans will be able to gleam from that, but it’s worth a look anyway.

If Mount Si gets this done and win they will play right after against either Peninsula or Meadowdale.

The Mount Si-NT game starts at 1:00 and the regional title game is at 4:00. Both games are at Bannerwood Park in Bellevue. Admission is $8 for adults, $6 for students and it covers both games.

NWJ, which features Mount Si senior Gen Knoppi, fell in the championship semifinals, but rebounded in the third place game, beating Webfoot of Eugene, OR, to earn that third place spot. NWJ had been seeded third coming into the tournament, and won all of their pool games Saturday to advance into the championship round.

Knoppi was the lone Valley player competing in this weekend’s event.

Flame Zacher finishes strong
The Issaquah Flame Zacher team finished out well, despite the result in the final game of the day. IFZ won three straight to advance to the finals against the White Rock, BC, Renegades but fell to the Canadian visitors in that final game 8-1. Among the three wins was one against their Flame counterparts from Abraham. It was no contest, either, as Zacher rolled to a 12-0 win. Players from North Bend competed on both teams – Tori Hellervik and Heather Hinton from Abraham, and Maddy Trout and C.J. Howatson from Zacher. Of those, Trout had the best numbers, with a run scored and two more runs driven in despite being 0-1.

Fellow North Bender Bayley Barnett earned the win in the circle for the Flame in their second game, a 7-4 triumph over the Oregon Breeze. She gave up the four Oregon runs, three of which were earned, on just five hits in a complete game effort. To round it out, Zacher advanced to the title game with a 5-3 win over the Stealth team, and both Trout and another North Bend player, Emily Webb, had hits in that game.

Redhawks fall
The Redhawks fell behind quick early on in their game against Lake Stevens’ Lake Breeze and couldn’t recover in the 10-2 loss. Cedarcrest High’s Hailey Lacher led the Redhawks efforts, with a double to key a 2-3 effort. Taylor Treado of Mount Si High also had a hit, as did Issaquah Middle School’s Sienna Otley.