Riverdog teams win state tournaments
IAN BIVONA | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 2 years, 4 months AGO
Ian Bivona serves as the Columbia Basin Herald’s sports reporter and is a graduate of Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. He enjoys the behind-the-scenes stories that lead up to the wins and losses of the various sports teams in the Basin. Football is his favorite sport, though he likes them all, and his favorite team is the Jets. He lives in Soap Lake with his cat, Honey. | July 11, 2022 1:25 AM
BREWSTER — The Columbia Basin Riverdogs’ 13U and 15U teams played at Brewster High School this weekend in state tournaments, with both teams advancing to regional play.
The tournament serves as a qualifier for Babe Ruth regional play, with the winner of the regionals advancing to the World Series in Virginia.
“This is a good group of boys, and they’ve worked hard all season for this,” 13U Riverdogs head coach Jaret Fulbright said. “So far, they’ve put everything together to come and win a state championship. They’ve worked hard for it, I think they’ve deserved it - but deserving it and earning it’s one thing, so they’ve got to go and earn this one.”
The 15U Riverdogs advanced on Friday after winning a best-of-three series against Farmers, with both games finishing 4-3. They’ll now head to Kelso for a chance to advance to the 13-15U World Series in Stafford, Virginia.
“It really does show the strength of the Riverdog program,” Riverdog General Manager Jason Laugen said of the win. “Both teams have a good shot of advancing out of regionals into the World Series.”
The 13U squad defeated 13U Farmers on Friday morning and 13U Venom on Saturday morning in Brewster. Fulbright credits the Lake Lifters program, a workout program hosted early in the morning, for getting his team ready for the early start time.
“Luckily, the boys have been preparing, a lot of them do the Lake Lifters at the high school, and they’ve been getting up at 7 a.m., going and working out,” Fulbright said. “So, they’ve been preparing themselves for early morning games. That set them up for success, I believe.”
The Riverdogs built up an early lead against the Venom, and didn’t look back. Despite a seventh inning where the Venom scored two runs, the 13U Riverdogs took a 9-3 win in their second game of the tournament.
“The boys stayed with it, kept the energy level high,” Fulbright said. “That was a good team we played, it could have changed very quickly.”
Pitcher Eli Nash got the start against the Venom.
“Our guy on the bump, he threw very well for us to shut them down most of the game,” Fulbright said.
The 13U Riverdogs advanced to the state championship game on Sunday, automatically qualifying them for regional play. With several teams dropping out of the state tournament, the two teams that made it to the championship game qualified for regionals.
“The two in the championship game will more-or-less be for seeding,” North Washington State Commissioner Roy Baker said.
When the state tournaments began, there were originally more teams participating in said tournaments. With numerous factors going into addressing why teams had to remove themselves from tournaments, there are now two 18U, two 15U, and five 13U teams.
“I think travel costs, just the expense of going places and being there,” Baker said of the teams that had to pull out. “I know for the older teams, the difficulty is this year is some of the teams had players get injured playing summer football, or kids wanting to work.”
The 13U Riverdogs took home the state title on Sunday, winning 17-2 in the championship game. Regional play begins July 25 and runs through July 30 in Kelso.
Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.
