Cruiser Baseball Season Ends
After jumping out to a 6-1 lead after three innings and silencing the Tenino Beaver bats, the tides turned and Tenino got hot at the plate and held the Cruisers scoreless for the rest of the game and the Beavers stormed back to take an 8-6 victory in a loser-out game in the 2022 Southwestern Washington District IV baseball playoffs. With that loss, the Cruiser’s season came to an end.
Earlier in the week in the opening game of the district playoffs, the #3 seeded Cruisers went to battle with the #2 seeded La Center Wildcats.
The Wildcats would score first in the bottom of the third inning to take a 1-0, only to have the Cruisers respond back right away in the top of the very next inning with two runs to move ahead 2-1.
La Center would get those two runs back in the bottom of that inning to take a 3-2 and hold that lead until the end dropping Eatonville into the consolation bracket in the double-elimination tournament.
Eatonville’s Blain Hanly would throw a complete game, giving up three runs on four hits and striking out seven Wildcat hitters.
At the plate, the Cruisers would be held to one hit on the day when Skylar Sarpy laid down a beautiful bunt to get on base and score the Cruisers' first run. He would finish the day 1-2 with an RBI and a walk.
In the consolation rounds, the Cruisers would face the #4 seeded team from the TriCo league in the Columbia/White Salmon Bruins in a loser-out game.
Eatonville would come away with a 5-1 victory in that matchup to ensure them at least one more game.
Ashton Meyer would get the start on the mound for Eatonville. He would go 5-⅓ innings giving up 1 run on 2 hits and striking out 9 batters. Offensively, Jakob Lucht would lead the Cruisers with 2 hits, going 2-4 with a double, and a run scored EJ McMains would go 1-1 at the plate, driving in two Cruisers runs and getting on base two other times via the hit by pitch.
In the final game of the season mentioned above against Tenino, the Cruisers would only manage three hits. Payton Hanly, Blain Hanly, and Riley Storm would each pick up one of those hits, and each of them also drove in a run.
The Cruisers would finish the season with an 11-11 record and take 3rd place in the 1A Evergreen Conference.
Eatonville will graduate ten seniors from this year’s squad and will return only three starters for next year's team. With a total of five returning players, the Cruisers will look very young next year and Coach Mike Moeller will have his work cut out for him to rebuild a competitive squad.
