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RIDGEFIELD — Make no mistake, W.F. West is excited to have the chance to defend its district title. After an 8-0 win over Ridgefield in a district semifinal on Wednesday, the Bearcats celebrated accordingly.

But as much as the district title game was at the forefront of the postgame discussions, the optimism and excitement about what’s to follow was just as prevalent.

“We want a different ending,” Connor Coleman said. “That’s all we want.”

Now that the Bearcats are officially back in the state tournament, they can turn their attention to another deep run, and they’re already hoping to improve on their back-to-back third-place finishes.

“This is big,” Cole Ozretich said. “Hopefully, we can take state this year.”

If the Bearcats put together a performance like they did on Wednesday, they’ll have as good of a chance as anybody.

W.F. West (18-5) took an early lead and never looked back, scoring in five separate innings while Cole Ozretich shut things down on the mound.

Ozretich pitched a complete-game, two-hit shutout, striking out nine and walking just one. While it seemed to everyone in the park that he was on his A-Game from the first pitch, Ozretich admitted that it took him a bit to settle in and find consistency.

“I couldn’t find my fastball in the first couple innings,” Ozretich said. “But I ended up coming back strong with all my pitches.”

Even with that, he was able to retire 21 of the 24 batters he faced, slowly but surely weaving together what W.F. West coach Jesse Elam called “one of the best pitching performances” he’s seen as a coach.

“That was an absolute masterpiece,” Elam said. “That’s about as good as it gets.” 

Before the final batter, Elam thought that Ozretich was at 75 pitches, and he considered pulling him so he could potentially pitch on Saturday.

After double-checking the pitch count, though, they realized he was already at 76, putting him in the three-days rest portion of the pitch count rules. Once he realized that, Elam was more than happy to let Elam get the final out.

“Let him finish what he started,” Elam said.

The Bearcat offense did more than enough to support Ozretich, giving him a cushion before he even took the mound.

Deacon Meller opened the scoring on a wild pitch in the first, and Coleman drilled a solo home run in the second.

The Bearcats scored on two more wild pitches to push the lead to 4-0 after five, and in the sixth, an RBI single from Grady Westlund and a sacrifice fly from Meller made it 6-0.

An RBI single from Miles Martin and another run on a wild pitch in the seventh made it eight for good measure.

Meller, Martin, Coleman, and Westlund tallied two hits each, and as a team, W.F. West went 10 for 30 at the plate.

“Bearcats hit in May,” Elam said. “It’s good to be having those types of games right now.”

Before they take the field in the state tournament, the Bearcats will take on Columbia River in the district title game on Saturday. A win would give W.F. West its second district championship in a row, and its sixth since 2016.

“The job’s not done,” Elam said. “We still got work to do.”

Behind four victories from Ava Jones on the girls side and two PR’s from the boys, Tumwater coasted to the team title victory for both genders at the Class 2A Evergreen Conference sub-district meet held at Tiger Stadium on Wednesday.

Its girls squad piled up 240 points, more than 100 in front of runner-up W.F. West (123). Rochester was fourth with 54 while Black Hills squeaked by Centralia 24-23 for sixth.

Jones picked up victories in the 100 and 200-meter dashes while she ran on legs in the winning 800 and 1,600 relays. Reese Heryford and Cassidy Hedin were a part of those quartets plus teamed with Ashlyn Hufana and Emery Schmidt to triumph in the 400 relay.

Summer Coleman cleared the high jump bar at 4 feet, 10 inches to set a new personal best for the Thunderbirds. Annabelle Clapp (400) and Abigail Krause (shot put) also won.

W.F. West’s Amanda Bennett set a new lifetime best in the pole vault, clearing nine feet even. The junior also won the javelin while Emily Mallonee swept the hurdles, Leslie Morales claimed the long jump and Joy Cushman took the 800.

Mallonee (300 hurdles) and Morales each had new personal bests. Black Hills’ Carmen Williams uncorked a throw of 108-03 to win the discus and Rochester’s Merecedies Dupont picked up three second place finishes in the 200, 400 and 800 relay. Centralia had three girls finish inside the top-three.

Meanwhile on the boys side, Tumwater edged by W.F. West 220-145 for the title. Black Hills finished fourth with 65 while Centralia (55) and Rochester (43.5) rounded out the team tally.

Aaron Paul tied the 2A state lead in the high jump with W.F. West’s Lucas Hoff by leaping 6-6 to win the event. He also won the long jump with a leap of 20-01 for the Thunderbirds.

Reid Crumley darted 40.94 seconds to secure the 300 hurdles and moved him into a tie for sixth amongst all competitors in 2A. Tumwater won both relays while Cash Short (100), Blake Kirkpatrick (200) and Josh Schlecht (400) each won races. Malijah Tucker (shot put) and Beckett Wall (javelin) picked up field event wins.

W.F. West’s Lucas Hoff won the pole vault with a clearance of 14 feet, a new season-best and sits him tied for third. Rochester’s Gunnar Morgan swept the two distance races while Black Hills’ Ezra Harris was second in the javelin. Centralia’s best finisher was Ethan Weiher placing fourth in the 1,600.

RIDGEFIELD — The rally was nearly complete.

After entering the top of the seventh down two runs, Tumwater scored two runs on an error to tie the game, and then it took the lead on an RBI single from Liam Karlson. In the blink of an eye, the T-Birds were three outs away from returning to the district title game.

“We were on the verge, and we just needed something to go our way,” Tumwater coach Lyle Overbay said.

Instead, Columbia River had a comeback of its own in store, as the Rapids tied it in the bottom of the seven before winning it in the eighth, sending Tumwater to a winner-to-state elimination game with a 6-5 extra-innings loss.

To return to the state tournament, Tumwater (17-6) will need to defeat R.A. Long in Ridgefield on Saturday.

While disappointed with the loss, Overbay was proud of the way the Thunderbirds rallied back in the seventh to extend the game, noting that that type of fight is something that will pay off later in the postseason, perhaps even as soon as this weekend.

“When you stick together, good things will happen,” Overbay said.

Tumwater took a lead in the second thanks to a sacrifice fly from Derek Thompson, and after the Rapids tied it in the third, they regained the lead in the fourth on a Peyton Davis RBI single.

Davis was one of four Thunderbirds to record two base hits, and those four T-Birds made up the bottom of the Tumwater lineup. The top five batters combined to go 1 for 14 (.071), while the bottom four — Landon Roy, Liam Karlson, Charlie Crawford, and Davis — combined to go 8 for 16 (.500).

Karlson came through with the go-ahead single in the top of the seventh, an at-bat that was only made possible when Will Bond was able to sneak his hand past the tag of the Columbia River catcher on the play before.

“It just shows you what kind of team this is,” Overbay said. “It’s special.”

While Tumwater is out of the running for a district title, Overbay noted that their biggest goal, a third consecutive state championship, is still achievable. The T-Birds will return to Ridgefield on Saturday to play R.A. Long for a state tournament berth.

“We still got a chance to get where we want to go,” Overbay said. “We just have got to focus, take care of business, and get back after it.”

RIDGEFIELD — As the Warriors walked off the field, it was difficult to find a dry eye.

The Warriors went blow-for-blow early against R.A. Long on Wednesday, but they couldn’t keep up as the game went along, and they left Ridgefield with a season-ending 11-3 defeat.

“To send them off that way is extremely difficult,” Rochester coach Brad Quarnstrom said. “You can’t fault their effort. They competed, and they fought.”

R.A. Long seemed to take control of the game immediately, as the Lumberjacks plated three runs in the first to take a 3-0 lead.

Rochester immediately responded in the second though, as Colton Weiss hit a two-out, two-run double and Ethan Rodriguez followed with an RBI double of his own to tie the game at three.

“They’ve always been a never say die type of group,” Quarnstrom said. “You gotta fight and scratch and claw to get your way back into it, and that’s what this group did.”

When the Lumberjacks retook the lead with a pair in the bottom of the second, the game seemed to be turning into a shootout.

Instead, the Warriors didn’t make a dent in the deficit in their next two at-bats, and R.A. Long blew the game open with five in the bottom of the fourth.

From the third inning on, only two Warriors reached base safely.

The Warriors finish their season with a 12-10 record and are set to graduate six seniors — Tate Quarnstrom, Hayden Pietras, Mason Armstrong, Ben Johnson, and Henry Gramelspacher.

Coach Quarnstrom began to choke up when talking about this senior class, saying that he watched the “Rochester boys” grow up playing with and against each other, even before they made it to the high school.

“There’s a ton of memoires,” Quarnstrom said. “The last four years have been special … I can’t ask for much more. I’m extremely proud of them.”