The roll continued for the Kentwood High baseball team on Friday afternoon.
A day after barely getting past rival Tahoma, the Conquerors exploded for 18 hits en route to a 15-9 South Puget Sound League win over Kentlake.
With the victory, Kentwood (13-0) assured itself of winning the SPSL North outright, its first league crown in 10 years. With three regular-season games remaining on the schedule, second-place Federal Way (9-4) is the closest team to the Conquerors.
Not that the Conquerors have needed much of a spark to get going this season, they received exactly that from lead-off hitter Zach Corpuz.
Corpuz went 5-for-6 with four runs scored and an RBI.
“He has kind of been a sparkplug for us all year,” said Kentwood coach Jon Aarstad. “He’s a solid kid. He doesn’t try and do too much when he’s at bat. He’s a tough out.”
On Friday, virtually every Conqueror who stepped to the plate proved to be a tough out. Avery Kain, who picked up the win on the mound, went 4-for-5 with three runs scored while Ben Cox added a pair of hits, including a two-run double in Kentwood’s six-run fourth that broke open the game.
“We came into (the season) wanting to build on our pitching, and to improve our hitting,” Corpuz said. “We’ve been working really hard. I guess it just worked out for us today.”
Indeed it did.
Corpuz showed what was to come in his first at-bat, chopping a single over the head of Kentlake third baseman Brian Hartnett on the fourth pitch of the game. Corpuz scored the first of Kentwood’s two runs in the inning moments later on a Kentlake miscue. The Conquerors pushed their lead to 3-0 in the second on a run-scoring single by Cash McGuire.
Kentlake responded with two runs in the third, keyed by an RBI single to the right-center gap by Jake Ross.
Kentlake, however, couldn’t hold Kentwood down. The Conquerors broke the game open in the fourth inning, sending 12 batters to the plate, and scoring six times against three different Kentlake pitchers in pushing their lead to 9-2. Along with Cox’s two-run double, Kentwood catcher Taylor White added an RBI single in the big inning.
“They’re a good-hitting team,” said Kentlake pitcher Doug Christie, who plans to walk-on at the University of Washington next year. “They know what they’re looking for and if they see it, they swing.”
The Falcons (7-6 in league play) battled back, scoring three in the fifth and adding four more runs in the sixth, but it wasn’t enough. Kentlake wasn’t able to retire Kentwood in order the entire afternoon.
Christie and Austin Pernell each had a pair of hits for the Falcons.
With Kentwood and Federal Way assured of playoff berths, the loss dropped the Falcons back into a pack of four teams – Kentlake (7-6), Jefferson (8-6), Kentridge (7-7) and Tahoma (6-5) – fighting for the final three playoff spots.
“If we win three more, we’re in,” said Kentlake coach Jason Evans.
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