Tumwater beats Columbia River for first state baseball championship on Ryan Orr's clutch hit
YAKIMA, Wash. — With the freshly minted Class 2A state softball champions rooting them on from the stands, the fourth-seeded Tumwater baseball team turned a double play for the T-birds.
Ryan Orr legged out a bases loaded single in the bottom of the seventh inning to give Tumwater its first baseball championship with a 1-0 victory against No. 2 Columbia River about two hours after the Tumwater girls finished off Othello to claim the softball title up the highway at Selah’s Carlon Park.
Orr had all three hits for the Rapids after pitching the T-birds past ninth-seeded W.F. West in Friday night’s semifinals.
“We looked at the way it all matched up and I’m looking at who’s on deck and I’m like, ‘OK, that’s the guy I want up,’” Tumwater coach Lyle Overbay said. “Legging it out, you could tell he wanted it and that’s just the will power of Ryan.”
The T-birds (22-6) loaded the bases in the seventh without a hit. Briar Finney, who was plunked by a pitch to start the inning, scored on Orr’s hit.
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“It’s just surreal, we always dreamed of that – winning a state championship our senior year,” said Orr, a Washington State commit. “It was just awesome to do it with my teammates.”
While Columbia River starter Casey Struckmeier was controlling the T-birds lineup, Tumwater starter Jordan Hanson, who’s headed to UNLV, was dominant as well.
The sturdy right-hander retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced, struck out five and pitched out of jams in the third and fourth innings.
The Rapids loaded the bases in the third before Hanson ended the threat by retiring a CR batter on a called third strike. In the fourth and with two on, the senior stopped the Rapids with a strikeout.
Hanson gave way to Alex Overbay in the seventh, and the junior stymied Columbia River to set up Orr’s heroics.
The championship caps a stellar year for Tumwater and its boys sports teams. The T-birds football team finished second in the fall and the basketball squad took home fourth in the Yakima Valley SunDome.
“We’ve come close but as I told these guys, they’ve never had this type of team,” Lyle Overbay said. “We had to finish it off a big day for Tumwater.”
Columbia River finished its season 21-6.
--Jerrel Swenning; @JSwenning.
