EVERETT — As the Marysville Pilchuck baseball team posed for a postgame championship photo, two players snuck up behind James Day and dumped a celebratory bucket of ice on their coach.
After another dominant performance from their sizzling bats and shutdown pitching, the Tomahawks are district champions for the first time in more than a decade.
Kee-An Ballard and Colby Phelps homered as Marysville Pilchuck routed Edmonds-Woodway 11-0 in five innings Saturday in the Class 3A Northwest District title game at Everett Memorial Stadium.
“The guys coming together and putting together that kind of game, that’s pretty emotional,” Day said. “It’s pretty sweet.”
It was the 11th consecutive win for the Tomahawks (19-4), who are headed to state for the first time since 2009.
“We’re playing good baseball right now,” Day said.
That might be an understatement.
Marysville Pilchuck cruised to the district title, outscoring opponents by a combined 29-1 margin in its three tournament games. The Tomahawks are averaging 9.2 runs per game during their win streak, and have scored double-digit runs eight times this season.
“We’ve worked so hard hitting, top to bottom,” Day said. “I believe one through nine in the lineup, they’re going to put good at-bats together, they’re going to put good swings on the ball and they’re going to hit the ball hard somewhere.”
Marysville Pilchuck’s high-scoring offense jumped on Edmonds-Woodway (14-9) early, scoring four runs in the first inning.
Ballard pulled a solo homer over the left-field fence in the second inning, and Phelps crushed a solo homer to center field in the third for a 6-0 lead. The Tomahawks added another run in the fourth and four in the fifth for the mercy-rule win.
Mark Bielawski, a senior, doubled twice as Marysville Pilchuck finished with six extra-base hits.
Lefty senior Tyler Devries pitched five shutout innings of two-hit ball for the Tomahawks, who have allowed just one run combined over their past four games.
Both teams advance to next Saturday’s 3A state regionals. Marysville Pilchuck will face Bonney Lake (20-5) at Sherman Anderson Field in Mount Vernon. Edmonds-Woodway will play Mercer Island (21-1) at Foss High School in a rematch of last year’s state third-place game.
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