Jackson, MP to state

Published 10:42 pm Tuesday, May 17, 2011

MONROE — The power bats of Marysville Pilchuck’s Riley Fritz and Jackson’s Matti Tetzlaff were behind their teams advancing to the 4A state softball championships on Tuesday.

Fritz launched home runs in each of her first two at-bats to lead the Tomahawks to a 10-1 victory over Cascade in a 4

A District 1 winner-to-state semifinal at Sky River Park in Monroe.

Meanwhile, on the neighboring field, Tetzlaff drove an 0-2 pitch well over the right field wall for a grand slam in Jackson’s seven-run fifth inning to help the Timberwolves notch a 7-3 semifinal victory over Arlington.

The Timberwolves and Tomahawks will square off at 3 p.m. Thursday at Sky River Park. It is a rematch of last year’s 4A District 1 championship game that Jackson won 11-10 in eight innings. Jackson coach Mike Moran said he expects MP to be ready for Thursday.

“I’m sure Marysville doesn’t forget that,” Moran said of last year’s district title game.

The Tommies future was never really in doubt in their two district wins. They handled Edmonds-Woodway 9-0 in the opening game and put up four runs in each of the first two innings against Cascade to take a commanding 8-0 lead.

With one out in the bottom of the first inning, MP’s Haley Fritz singled to center and the following batter, Megan Rollings, walked. That set the table for Riley Fritz. She hit a towering shot down the left field line which stayed within the foul line and had just enough to get over the left field wall to give the Tommies a 3-0 advantage. Morgan Martinis followed with a solo homer of her own to give Marysville a 4-0 lead at the end of the first inning.

“I thought it was cool that in the first inning Morgan hit one right after I did,” Riley Fritz said.

In the bottom of the second, MP kept piling it on. With two runs already in and only one out, Riley Fritz stepped to the plate, again with Rollings on base. Fritz went deep again, this time hitting a ball to straight away center field, which easily cleared the fence to give the Tomahawks an 8-0 lead.

“Looking at her stature you don’t expect her to hit the ball over the fence, but she does,” MP head coach KT Allyn said.

For all of Fritz’s accomplishments, it was her first two-homer game.

“I’ve never done that before, I was pretty excited,” Fritz said.

Fritz was also a star in the pitching circle. She threw a complete-game four-hitter, striking out four Bruins.

MP’s Casey Zachry chipped in offensively, batting 2-for-3 with two runs scored and Haley Fritz batted 2-for-4 with one run scored.

Cascade’s Chloe McIntosh batted 3-for-3 with the lone Bruin RBI.

Jackson’s road to state was a little rockier than MP’s. They got everything they could handle from Snohomish in the first round, but managed to escape with a 9-7 win.

Then Jackson trailed Arlington, to whom the Timberwolves lost to twice in the regular season, but a huge bottom of the fifth inning turned the tide.

With one out, six straight Jackson batters reached base. Jessica Mirante single to right field, Maddy Mertens singled to left field and Megan Cooley double to left field to score Mirante and tie the score at 1-1. The next batter, Chandra Tewari, hit an infield single and that was followed by walks issued to Lindsay Robison and Dewey Davis. That brought up Tetzlaff, she fell behind 0-2, but that didn’t seem to matter as she drove the third pitch over the right field wall to give the Timberwolves a commanding 6-1 lead. Jackson would add one more run before the end of the inning.

“I just saw that fat outside pitch and I just hit it,” Tetzlaff said. “It felt really good coming off the bat and I knew it was gone. I definitely needed to do that for our pitcher because we weren’t helping her out very much in the field.”

“She was down 0-2 and the wind just carried that baby right out. It was a nice hit,” Moran said.

Megan Cooley batted 2-for-4 with an RBI and Maddy Mertens batted 2-for-3 for the Timberwolves.

Lynsey Amundson batted 2-for-3 with a double, and a two-run single for Arlington.

Cascade won its first round game over Monroe 3-2 to advance to the semifinals and Arlington beat Kamiak 13-3 in six innings.

Monroe beat Edmonds-Woodway 19-0 in five innings in a loser-out game. The Bearcarts play Arlington at 1 p.m. on Thursday in another loser-out game. Kamiak defeated Snohomish 14-4 in five innings in another loser-out game. The Knight play Cascade at 1 p.m. Thursday in a loser-out game.

At Sky River Park

Cascade 000 100 0– 1 4 5

Marysville Pilchuck 440 020 x–10 11 0

Sellevold, Munger (2) and Deaver. R. Fritz and Christensen. WP–R. Fritz. LP–Sellevold. 2B–Christensen (MP). HR–Fritz (MP) 2, Martinis (MP). Records–Cascade 13-9 overall. Marysville Pilchuck 19-1.

Arlington 010 002 0–3 7 0

Jackson 000 070 x–7 9 0

Fields, Ladines (5) and Amudson. Robison and Wilson. WP–Robison. LP–Fields. 2B–Ladines (A), Amundson (A), Robison (J), Mertens (J), Cooley (J). HR–Tetzlaff (J). Records–Arlington 17-5 overall. Jackson 16-5.