Junior Legion: Titus Will Shakes Off Slow Start to Win in First Round

July 19--OLYMPIA -- Jake Sutton took the best punch River Ridge could deliver, shrugged it off and helped his Titus Will junior American Legion team to a 9-3 first-round victory in the Area 2 District Baseball Tournament at Olympia High School on Friday. River Ridge jumped on Sutton in the first inning for five hits and 3 runs but was blanked after that and could muster just three more hits as the Centralia hurler pitched a complete game and struck out five.

"I was really impressed with how Jake settled in after that first inning," Titus Will coach Rex Ashmore said. "They hit a lot of balls hard in the first frame, but it just shows that kid's character. His pitch count was up but we left him in once we got a cushion because he's the kind of player that never wants to be taken out."

River Ridge led 3-0 until the bottom of the third, when Titus Will loaded the bases and Christian Peters drew a walk to bring in the Hub City squad's first run. In the next frame, Titus Will had a 3-run rally thanks to a triple by Joey Aliff, an RBI double by Max Dulin and a 2-run single by Kieran Bredeson.

"The one big thing was adjustments at the plate," Ashmore said. "Our at-bats weren't very good at first and we weren't moving the runners. We started to wait more in the box and hit the other way."

Chase Evinger and Riley Christensen each had RBIs in the fifth inning to make it 6-3. Titus Will then collected 3 big insurance runs thanks to three River Ridge errors in the bottom of the sixth that went along with RBIs from Cody Parker-Sexsmith, Evinger and Christensen.

Titus Will finished with 10 hits, including 2 for 4 performances by Aliff and Bredeson.

The Centralia squad will now play in the tournament semifinals at 6 p.m. today, back at Olympia High School.

"We've had a long summer and I don't think the kids want to stop playing," Ashmore said. "I think this is the most lively I've seen the bench. We want to keep playing."

___

(c)2014 The Chronicle (Centralia, Wash.)

Visit The Chronicle (Centralia, Wash.) at www.chronline.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services