After pulling out an ugly, error-filled game in the opening round of the district tournament, the Kentwood High baseball team came correct Saturday afternoon at Art Wright Field in Kent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Behind another strong performance by ace lefthander Kyle Doyle and steady defensive play throughout, the Conquerors turned back South Kitsap 5-0 in a semifinal game of the West Central\/Southwest 4A Bi-District tournament.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played a lot cleaner. It wasn\u2019t such a messy game,\u201d said Kentwood coach Jon Aarstad.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Conquerors (17-6) were coming off a 15-7 throttling of Gig Harbor in the opening round of the tournament. Kentwood committed an uncharacteristic five errors in the win, though still clinched a state berth in the process.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s victory over South Kitsap was another story.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Doyle, who has become Kentwood\u2019s No. 1 pitcher after previous ace Avery Kain suffered a season-ending leg injury more than a month ago, was as strong as ever. Doyle worked five shutout innings, allowed just two hits and two walks while striking out six.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been our go-to guy since Avery went down,\u201d Aarstad said. \u201cHe came up and got it done.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
As did the Kentwood bats.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Genger, who picked up the save with two solid innings of relief, gave Kentwood\u2019s pitching staff all the offense it would need by driving home Taylor Jones with a single in the second inning.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentwood broke the game open with a four-run fourth inning. The Conquerors pushed their lead to 2-0 after a bases-loaded South Kitsap error, which set the table for Cash McGwire. McGwire didn\u2019t disappoint, either, drilling a bases-clearing double into the left-center gap, giving Kentwood a 5-0 lead.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
McGwire finished with two of Kentwood\u2019s five hits, and three RBIs.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With the win, Kentwood advances to the championship round of the district tournament, where the Conquerors will meet up with Puyallup. The game was originally slated for 7 p.m. Saturday night, but was rained out. The game has now been re-scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday night (May 16) at Art Wright Field in Kent. With more rain in the forecast, the game could be moved to Tuesday in addition to being shifted to a turf field.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point, I just want to get it in,\u201d Aarstad said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The state tournament begins Saturday at various locations.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After pulling out an ugly, error-filled game in the opening round of the district tournament, the Kentwood High baseball team came correct Saturday afternoon at Art Wright Field in Kent.<\/p>\n
Behind another strong performance by ace lefthander Kyle Doyle and steady defensive play throughout, the Conquerors turned back South Kitsap 5-0 in a semifinal game of the West Central\/Southwest 4A Bi-District tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12420"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}