SPOKANE – Playing in the Gonzaga Midsummer Classic, the 18U Columbia Basin River Dogs opened the tournament with a 10-2 win over Spokane Select on Thursday.

Games in the Midsummer Classic alternate between Whitworth University and Gonzaga University, allowing players the chance to play in a collegiate baseball stadium.

“Any time you get the opportunity to play at a college field and know that you’re going to have exposure to college coaches, I think if that doesn’t get the boys excited then I don’t know what will,” Lybbert said. “They showed that today, they were able to have the right mentality and play like their hair was on fire. They did a great job.”

Spokane jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning, but the River Dogs scored runs in the final five innings to ride off with the win.

“When we have all of our guys here and healthy and available, we’re really confident that we can swing the bat and that we can hit the ball,” Lybbert said. “The biggest and most important aspect of us getting back in that ballgame was being able to apply pressure through good baserunning and through execution.”

Pitcher Kason Whitaker got the start on the mound and rallied from a three-hit first inning to finish with four hits and two strikeouts over four innings pitched.

“He battled through the rest of the game, he worked ahead in the count pretty well,” Lybbert said. “Had a solid outing through four (innings).”

The River Dogs added their first run off an RBI by first baseman Hayden Meek in the bottom of the second, later scoring two more runs on a two-RBI single by catcher Blaine Macdonald in the bottom of the third to take a 3-2 lead.

“Their pitchers were actually throwing decent, but we were able to put together some good at-bats,” Lybbert said. “There was a couple of times early where we had guys working into full counts, we made their pitchers work and earn everything they got.”

After left fielder Willen Jansen drove in a run on an RBI double, shortstop Jayce Stuart’s sacrifice bunt added tow more runs to give the River Dogs a 6-2 lead after four innings.

“We scored two runs on a squeeze play because we had alert base runners, we talked a lot about that at practice this week,” Lybbert said. “Working on baserunning strategies and things we felt like we hadn’t had the opportunity to work on them in practice.”

Holden Koziol, Meek and Jansen added RBI in the bottom of the fifth to extend the Columbia Basin lead, and an RBI single by second baseman Zane Harden ended the game in the sixth inning.

“It’s really important for all those guys to start building confidence,” Lybbert said. “Not only for a big, important tournament like this weekend where they’re going to have exposure to Whitworth coaches, Gonzaga coaches, Spokane Falls Community College coaches – it’s important for them to have that exposure and perform well and to have that right mindset going into this tournament, but it also helps us build our confidence and to prepare for regionals next week.”

The River Dogs face off against the Expos at 2:30 p.m. at Whitworth on Friday and against Gunderson at 3:30 p.m. at Gonzaga on Saturday.

Ian Bivona may be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.