CHEHALIS — The Othello Huskies began their push for a state championship, winning in both the opening round against R.A. Long 4-1 and in the quarterfinals against W.F. West 14-8. The Huskies entered the tournament as the number five seed.

“I feel amazing, man, these guys have done a great job this year,” said Huskies head coach Sonny Garza. “Everything that I’ve kind of thrown at them, they’ve just soaked it in, and they’ve been able to go out and execute.”

Othello’s first opponent in the state tournament was the No. 12 seed R.A. Long. The game went scoreless in the first inning, with R.A. Long earning the first score of the game in the top of the second, which would be the team’s only score.

Zayvier Olazcon singled down the left field line in the bottom of the fourth to tie the game 1-1. The Huskies would go on to take the lead in the bottom of the sixth after Jaxon Gomez singled, Kal-El Ozuna walked and Jordan Montemayor doubled, each scoring one run for the final score of 4-1.

Sonny Salazar pitched the first six and a third innings for the Huskies, where he surrendered three hits and one run, striking out nine and walking three. Montemayor pitched relief in the final inning.

“They threw a pretty good pitcher at us to start, and it took us a little bit to get going, but the players stayed in it,” said Garza.

The Huskies went into the quarterfinals, where they played the number four seed, W.F. West. Following their victory over R.A. Long, Garza said the players felt more confident in themselves and were ready to face what would be a potentially even tougher opponent.

“That first game kind of propelled us to prepare ourselves for that second game,” said Garza.

The coach said the Huskies started out a little rough against W.F. West, with the opponent coming out strong at bat. Over the first three innings, W.F. West put up six runs while the Huskies' first scores came in the bottom of the third with three runs.

Ozuna scored at the top of the fourth after Montemayor hit a sacrifice ball. The Huskies got in motion in the top of the fifth, where they scored three runs. A single by Olazcon scored a run and a triple from Ozuna scored two.

The Huskies put up another score in the top of the sixth before W.F. West scored in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game at 8-8 in the seventh inning. In the top of the seventh, the Huskies would put up six points and prevent their opponent from scoring in the bottom of the seventh, earning them the 14-8 victory to send them to the semifinals.

“That second game was a good overall game,” said Garza. “We had a lot of guys do things for the team and get us to have that opportunity to score runs and win that game.”

Olazcon went four for four against W.F. West, resulting in scoring runs in the third and fifth and two in the seventh inning. In total the Huskies collected 16 hits in the game with Ozuna Montemayor, Quade Gonzalez, AJay Garza and Salazar each collecting multiple hits.

The Huskies used four different pitchers against W.F. West with AJay Garza, Montemayor, Ozuna and Xzyyvn Martinez getting a few innings on the mound.

“There was no quit in them this weekend, they just continued to fight and once they broke the seal and got going, they knew that they were going to be able to keep momentum,” said Garza.

The team is now set to face the number one seed in the 2A, Anacortes, in the semifinals of the state tournament. The Huskies are just going to work on keeping the ball in play and putting pressure on defense, Garza said.

“I feel super excited for this group of seniors and juniors in particular,” said Garza. “They’ve been together for so long, it’s just so gratifying to see all of their hard work and all of the long hours that they’ve put in play it’s role and see them do good things.”

The Huskies' semifinal round against Anacortes will be at the Joe Martin Stadium in Bellingham on Friday at 7 p.m.

Box Scores:  

Opening Round
OTHL: 0 0 0 1 0 3 X 4
RALG: 0 1 0 0 0 0 0  1 

Quarterfinals
OTHL: 0 0 3 1 3 1 6 14
WFWS: 3 2 1 0 0 2 0 8 

    Quade Gonzalez on the mound earlier this season. During the state tournament he put up multiple hits in the team's 16 hit total against W.F. West.
  

    Xzyyvyn Martinez sprints toward second in a game against Quincy. Martinez pitched relief against W.F. West for an inning of scoreless ball
  

    Pictured from an earlier game against Quincy, Jordan Montemayor takes a swing at the ball. At the state tournament, Montemayor made multiple hits that resulted in Huskie runs.