Regional play rolled on at Funko Field on Saturday, and the Trojans showed no signs of breaking stride.
Game one began as a pitcher’s duel, scoreless until Everett got on the board in the bottom of the fifth. The play that opened the scoring would surely take home gold if there were a contest for Strangest Play of the Season.
It went like this: Second baseman Micah Coleman popped up weakly to the right side, and the ball fell to the turf as his Shoreline counterpart couldn’t put the squeeze on it. Coleman, running hard the whole way, made the turn and headed to second.
“We’re taught to hustle everything out, I saw the second baseman drop it and I started sprinting,” Coleman said.
As Coleman dove into second, the throw from the second baseman was both late and wide, and the ball ended up against the left field fence near the Trojans bullpen.
Coleman got up and resumed his journey around the basepaths with haste. As he neared third, the Shoreline left fielder still hadn’t retrieved the ball.
Shouts of “Send him!” arose from the Everett dugout. The third base coach gave an emphatic windmill motion to Coleman, signaling him to keep running.
Three errors, a dive into second and 360 feet of frantic baserunning later, Coleman scored the first run of the game.
Coleman said he hadn’t been in a play like that for quite some time.
“Maybe when I was 10 or 11, back in Little League, so it was pretty fun to be a part of that.”
From there, the floodgates opened. The Trojans scored one more in the fifth, six in the seventh and two in the eighth to end the game by run rule.
Freshman right hander Wyatt Queen did the heavy lifting on the mound, working six shutout innings with eight strikeouts.
“I thought my slider was working well today,” Queen said. “I just wanna do my job and do it well. My job is to eat innings as a starter, so that’s my goal going into the game.”
Mason Devinney took over in the seventh and threw two scoreless innings of his own, striking out two and not allowing a hit as he closed out the team’s third shutout of the season.
Everett got on the board earlier and in a much more conventional fashion to start game two. After a one-out triple from Jonah Shull, third baseman Carson Burns scored him with an RBI groundout.
The Trojans racked up three more runs on four hits in the third, highlighted by a two-RBI double off the bat of shortstop Axel Puls.
Shoreline halved the Everett lead in the fourth, capitalizing on two errors to score two unearned runs off Trojans starter Ethan Hubbell. They added another in the top of the fifth, but that run was quickly canceled out by an Everett tally in the bottom of the inning.
Hubbell exited after seven strong innings, allowing three runs (one earned) on five hits and a walk with four punchouts to his name.
Freshman lefty Landon Welter entered the game in the eighth and found himself in a bases-loaded jam with one out after an error, a hit batter and a single.
After a strikeout for the second out of the inning, Shoreline sent forth a pinch hitter with the game more or less on the line.
Welter’s first pitch was hammered on a line toward right field, seemingly destined for the corner. A tie game, if not a Shoreline lead, appeared inevitable.
At least until Shull, who usually mans shortstop, leapt into the air and snared the ball with minimal effort but terrific timing, preserving the Trojans lead.
The offense added two runs in the bottom of the inning and Nathan Harb came on for the ninth, securing the Trojans’ second win of the day.
While their 4-0 record in regional play suggests a nice, shiny finished product on the field, Head Coach Keith Hessler recognizes that there is still work to be done.
“The offense definitely started slow,” Hessler said. “The second game started out better, but then we kind of got satisfied with what we had and went through a lull in the middle of the game, which is frustrating. It’s still a work in progress, it will always be at this level.”
With the doubleheader sweep under their belts, Everett will look to continue their regional success next Saturday, April 6 at home versus Edmonds.