The Kent\/Chinook Little League Senior All-Star team is well aware of the target that sits on its chest.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That, however, hasn’t slowed the local stars, which is comprised of 14 through 16 year olds who live in Covington, Kent, Bonney Lake and Enumclaw.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kent\/Chinook, which won the state tournament a year ago, opened the same tournament this past weekend at Brannan Park in Auburn in strong fashion, picking off Redmond and Richmond in succession.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kent\/Chinook knocked off Redmond in the opener Saturday, 4-2, and upended Richmond Sunday, 10-5, in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Kent\/Chinook stars will look to repeat as state champions this week as the tournament concludes on July 22. The two wins helped Kent\/Chinook advance to the semifinals, where it will play against Stilly Valley at noon Tuesday at Brannan Park.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“This is a good group,” said coach Kirk Davis. “They know they have a target on their back and everybody pitches their best pitcher against us. This team can win in a lot of ways.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
As much was evident in the first two rounds of the tournament.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In the 4-2 win over Redmond, the team Kent\/Chinook beat for last year’s title, David Prince worked five sharp innings on the mound to pick up the win. Steve Hunt delivered a flawless two innings of relief to earn the save.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“He was huge closing out that game,” Davis said of Hunt, who struck out the side in the sixth inning.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kent\/Chinook took an immediate lead with two runs in the bottom of the first inning on a two-run double to center field by Matt Nutting that scored Jared Mackie and Garrett Robertson. Robertson reached after being hit by a pitch, and Mackie singled.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Redmond tied the game 2-2 in the third inning before Kent\/Chinook put away the game with a two-run fifth inning. Colby Thompson started the rally with a one-out double before Robertson legged out an infield single. With two outs, Mackie delivered a two-run double that would give the Kent\/Chinook pitching staff all the runs it would need.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“We basically got two big hits in the game,” Davis said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Of course, the defense came through as well.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Second baseman Ricky Davis helped seal the victory with an acrobatic grab on a shallow fly ball to center field.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
While Kent\/Chinook used just enough timely hitting, good defense and strong pitching to earn the win in the opener, the local stars delivered at the plate against Richmond.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Those bats came particularly alive in the seventh inning. Tied 5-5 against Richmond, Kent\/Chinook erupted for five runs in the frame to earn the win.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Thompson and Prince collected back-to-back singles to open the inning. Robertson then reached on an error to load the bases for Mackie, who singled to right field, giving Kent\/Chinook a 6-5 advantage. Nutting then walked with the bases loaded, scoring Prince and pushing Kent\/Chinook’s lead to 7-5. Sam Burtis followed with a two-run double to deep right field, giving Kent\/Chinook a 9-5 lead. Mike Mazzitelli wrapped up the five-run inning with a fielder’s choice out that scored Michael Hanek from third.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The winner of the state tournament advances to the Western Regionals, which will be played in Ontario, Calif., beginning Aug. 2.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Kent\/Chinook Little League Senior All-Star team is well aware of the target that sits on its chest.<\/p>\n
That, however, hasn’t slowed the local stars, which is comprised of 14 through 16 year olds who live in Covington, Kent, Bonney Lake and Enumclaw.<\/p>\n
Kent\/Chinook, which won the state tournament a year ago, opened the same tournament this past weekend at Brannan Park in Auburn in strong fashion, picking off Redmond and Richmond in succession.<\/p>\n
Kent\/Chinook knocked off Redmond in the opener Saturday, 4-2, and upended Richmond Sunday, 10-5, in the quarterfinals.<\/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-4790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4790"}],"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=4790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4790"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}