Going the Rounds: Lakeside proved state titles aren’t won in April

By Rick Anderson

For The Daily World

Spectators who attended a three-team softball doubleheader in early April at Montesano’s Rottle Field might have suspected they were watching the eventual state 1A champions.

Few would have guessed, however, that the team that lost both games would hoist the state trophy some seven weeks later.

Venturing west of the mountains during spring break, Lakeside of Nine Mile Falls was clobbered by Montesano, 9-0, in a contest that was easily as one-sided as the score indicated.

The Bulldogs touched Lakeside pitcher Shelby Claassen for six runs – including Lindsay Pace’s three-run homer — in the first two innings. Monte pitching ace Samantha Stanfield, meanwhile, struck out eight of the 10 batters she faced during a three-inning stint.

Lakeside then fell to Castle Rock (which agreed to come north for a neutral-field game), 9-7, in the second half of the doubleheader.

The Eagles from the Spokane area, however, wound up proving one of Montesano coach Pat Pace’s pet axioms, that state championships aren’t won in April. They left Montesano with a 5-5 record, but won 15 of their last 17 games.

While Lakeside’s state championship was assuredly an upset, it would be hard to call it a fluke. The Eagles outscored their four state opponents, 40-11, Their resume included a 6-1 revenge win over Castle Rock in the state semis and a 19-9 conquest of fast-rising Elma in the championship game.

Lakeside became only the second school outside Southwest Washington since 2004 (Connell won three in a row in 2011-13) to capture a state 1A title.

This accomplishment wasn’t universally embraced in the northeast district. Following a semifinal loss to Elma, a Chewelah fan was overheard saying, “I don’t know what’s worse, us losing or Lakeside playing for the title.” In contrast, several Montesano parents and coaches visibly supported rival Elma on its title run.

Until the championship game, Elma looked to be the team that was peaking at the right time.

The all-underclass Eagles (both finalists have the same mascot) played three outstanding games at state. They received excellent offensive production from throughout the lineup and committed only one error apiece in each of the first three contests. Sophomore Quin Mikel, meanwhile, looked to be the best pitcher in the tournament.

For whatever reason (inexperience, fatigue, nerves), Elma was far off-form – particularly defensively — in the title contest. But, as coach Roger Elliott noted, the Eagles gained valuable experience for what should be a strong title run next year.

Elliott was also correct in asserting that the title-game umpiring did his team no favors, although that observation needs to be kept in perspective.

Two sixth-inning calls seemed particularly questionable,

An Elma outfielder made a running catch of Olivia Charbonneau’s drive to right-center, briefly maintained possession as she crashed into the fence, then dropped the ball as she turned to throw. To many on hand, it appeared she lost the ball on the transfer, which meant Charbonneau would have been out with the runners free to advance at their own risk. The umps ruled it was a muff, with all hands safe.

Two batters later, a Lakeside runner collided with shortstop Kali Rambo when the latter was pursuing a ground ball up the middle. Interference, however, was not called

Yet even had those calls been reversed, Lakeside still would have scored three runs in the sixth and taken a 16-9 lead into the seventh. Given the see-saw nature of the contest, an Elma comeback was possible but not particularly likely.

Even prior to the sixth-inning incidents, I found myself wondering whether the title-game crew actually included the three best umpires in the tournament, Many of Claassen’s six walks, a key factor in keeping Elma in the game, came on pitches that looked an awful lot like strikes.

But when a team lashes out 20 hits in six innings, as Lakeside did, it is pretty obvious that umpiring did not decide the outcome.

Montesano’s state downfall came much earlier, in a frustrating opening-round eight-inning loss to unheralded Chewelah that took the nine-time state champion Bulldogs out of title contention.

Many pre-tournament favorites tend to mentally check out following such an upset. The Bulldogs, to their credit, rebounded to win five straight losers bracket contests and eventually place third.

The Bulldogs also had the distinction of beating two eventual state champions — Lakeside in April and 2A champ Woodland in a game both teams squeezed into the short break between district and state.

In a sense, the road to the state championship again ran through Montesano. This year, however, it didn’t end there.