EPHRATA — The Columbia Basin River Dogs baseball team hoped that playing host to the Babe Ruth North State Regional tournament would give them the edge to survive and advance to Regional play.

Then came Mitch McQueen.

The Thomas Jefferson High School pitcher — clocked throwing as hard as 91 miles-per-hour — kept the River Dogs off-balance all night and his Kent Bulldogs advanced to the Friday’s state tournament final with a 9-3 win.

The River Dogs now must play the winner of the Wilder/Kent Bulldogs U-17 consolation game, tonight at  8 p.m. at Johnson/O’Brien Stadium.

If the River Dogs win that contest they would then have to beat the senior Bulldogs’ squad twice tomorrow to advance.

Moses Lake High School’s Dylan Signorelli was 2-for-2 with a home run and Brett Gray (Big Bend CC) finished 2-for-4 to lead the River Dogs’ offense.

“Our first two pitchers didn’t throw strikes and we walked six guys, hit a batter, and had a costly error,” River Dogs coach Randy Boruff said. “Of those six walks they all came around so of those nine runs most of them came from those walks.”

The tournament winner is the only team that advances to the Babe Ruth Regional Tournament in Portland next week.

To set up the semifinal bout with the Bulldogs, the River Dogs won their first two games of the Tournament on Tuesday at Johnson/O’Brien Stadium.

In their opener they beat the Bulldogs’ (U-17) team 8-0 to start the competition.

Kody Samuels (Moses Lake High School) pitched a complete game three-hit shutout to beat the Bulldogs U-17 team.

Offensively Cameron Alvarado (Moses Lake HS) was on base in all four of his plate appearances with two walks, two singles, and two runs scored.

Matt Herbert (Big Bend CC) contributed two doubles and scored two runs while Davis Engel (Ellensburg HS) completed the game of River Dogs’ deuces wild with a two-run double in the seventh inning.

They followed up the win with a 4-3 come-from-behind victory over Wilder Baseball of Port Angeles later that day.

Engel’s single in the bottom of the sixth inning brought in the winning run against Wilder.

Shon Valdez (Othello HS) helped engineer the River Dogs’ comeback from a 3-0 deficit.

He finished with three hits, including a solo home run, and two RBIs while also providing a strong defensive game behind the plate according to River Dogs’ coaches.

Cody Johns (Naches Valley HS) went the distance on the mound for the River Dogs to get the victory.

In addition to the River Dogs’ run in the tournament, the Desert Dogs — a team of remaining Columbia Basin-area All Stars — were eliminated from the tournament by going 0-2 in the event.

They were defeated 6-0 by the Seattle Braves on Tuesday and then lost 11-0 to North Kitsap yesterday afternoon.

“I think we can do it since we’ve got two good pitchers left to go and can pitch by committee if we have to,” Boruff said. “If we win tomorrow and the first game on Friday they will be in the same boat as we are. We just didn’t get the clutch hits and we didn’t pitch as good as we’d like.”