Call it gut instinct.<\/p>\n
Whatever it was, Kent Senior Little League coach Kevin Vallala was right on the money Wednesday night at Redmond’s Hartman Park.<\/p>\n
“I had a good feeling before the game,” the coach said. “I told the players we were going to get 15 hits and win 10-3.”<\/p>\n
Vallala undershot just a bit.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Kent Senior All-Star team, which is comprised of 14-16 year olds, racked up 20 hits and rolled to a 14-2, six-inning throttling of Redmond in a state semifinal game.<\/p>\n
Leadoff hitter Jared Mackie gave Redmond a quick demonstration on what to expect in the first at-bat of the game, launching a double off the wall. Kent proceeded to score three runs in the opening inning, four more in the third, one in the fourth and six in the sixth.<\/p>\n
Of the 20 hits, 13 were singles, five were doubles, and two were triples.<\/p>\n
“It’s a young team, but the boys are very, very poised,” Vallala said. “There was no jumping around after the game. They know we have another game to go.”<\/p>\n
Mackie, DJ Vallala, Dalton Cryderman, Ricky Davis and David Prince collected three hits apiece for Kent. Prince also delivered a strong performance on the mound, going six innings, allowing just four hits and striking out four. Matt Nutting added a pair of hits, a run scored and an RBI in the win.<\/p>\n
The win helped Kent earn a berth in the championship game, which is slated for 10 a.m. July 24 (Saturday) at Hartman Park in Redmond against a yet to be determined opponent. If Kent falls Saturday morning, it would get a second chance for the tournament title since it’s the lone team in the field to avoid the loser’s bracket.<\/p>\n
The winner of the tournament heads to regionals, which will be played the following weekend in Ontario, Calif.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Call it gut instinct.
\nWhatever it was, Kent Senior Little League coach Kevin Vallala was right on the money Wednesday night at Redmond’s Hartman Park.
\n“I had a good feeling before the game,” the coach said. “I told the players we were going to get 15 hits and win 10-3.”
\nVallala undershot just a bit.<\/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-7892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7892"}],"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=7892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7892"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}