Lynden Christian baseball clinched a spot in the 1A state tournament with an elimination of Nooksack Valley 1A District 1/2 tournament Saturday, May 11. Meridian — which had already secured a state berth last week — fell to Cedar Park Christian in the district championship May 11.
LC (13-10) and Meridian (16-7) will now await seeding for the regional round of the 16-team state tourney. Seeding will be announced Sunday, May 12 and regionals begins Saturday, May 18.
Consolation semifinals: Lynden Christian 1, Nooksack Valley 0
Lynden Christian advanced to state and knocked out Nooksack Valley with a 1-0 victory May 11 at Sehome High School.
Jonah Terpstra tossed a gem for the Lyncs, allowing just one hit and one walk with a pair of strikeouts to earn the complete-game victory.
Offensively, Trey Johnson (2 for 3) knocked in what would be the game-clinching run with a single to right field that scored Brody Bouwman in the top of the sixth inning. Sam Kok, Austin Engels and Jayden Huleatt all had hits for the Lyncs.
Jesse Tresselt has the Pioneers’ lone hit on the day. Evan Brown pitched the first five innings for NV, allowing zero runs with one walk and a strikeout in five innings. Kasey Newton took the loss in relief, giving up one run on one hit with a walk and two strikeouts.
Nooksack Valley ends its season with a 10-12 overall record.
District championship: Cedar Park Christian 4, Meridian 2
Cedar Park Christian scored all the runs it would need in the first inning and the Eagles held off Meridian’s fourth-inning comeback bid to down the Trojans 4-2 in the district championship May 11 at Joe Martin Stadium.
Dylan Hicks’ two-run double and Chris Pruitt’s RBI single helped the Eagles ambush the Trojans in the first inning. Another Cedar Park Christian RBI single in the second inning put the Eagles up 4-0.
Meridian punched back in the fourth inning when Jonah Aase (2 for 3) crushed a two-run homer to right field, scoring Ian Forbes and pulling the Trojans within two at 4-2. But that’s all the offense they could muster the rest of the way as the Eagles held on for the win. Meridian was held to four hits on the day while giving up nine to Cedar Park Christian.
Aase threw four innings of relief, striking out four while allowing four hits, no runs and no walks. Starting pitcher Nate Payne went two innings, giving up four runs on five hits and no walks while striking out four.
Consolation finals: Overlake-Bear Creek 5, Lynden Christian 3
Right after clinching a spot at state, Lynden Christian couldn’t keep the momentum churning in a 5-3 loss to Overlake-Bear Creek in the third/fourth-place game May 11 at Sehome High School.
The Lyncs were within striking distance throughout, tying the game up in the top of the sixth when Jaxon Huleatt was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to pull the Lyncs within one at 3-2. An Eagles’ infield error the next at-bat allowed Carson Libolt to score and tie it up.
But the Eagles answered right back in the bottom of the sixth with two more runs, then held LC scoreless in the top of the seventh to close it out.
Eli Maberry was 2 for 4 at the plate to lead the offense. Libolt, Jase Postma and Engels all walked twice. Maberry threw one inning of relief, with one earned run on four hits and one walk. Bouwman, the starter, gave up six hits and two earned runs while striking out four across five innings.
A previous version of this story misidentified Meridian players Jonah Aase and Silas Berschauer in photo captions. The story was updated to correct this at 4:19 p.m. on Monday, May 13.
Eric Trent is CDN’s news producer; reach him at erictrent@cascadiadaily.com.
