North Clark County high school baseball teams faced stiff statewide competition in the Clark County Baseballism Kickoff Classic tournament last weekend.
Ridgefield, La Center, Battle Ground and Prairie all competed in the Kickoff Classic that brought 36 teams from each corner of the state to Clark County to square off in eight different brackets played at several different turf fields. The majority of the tournament games took place on Friday, March 20, and Saturday, March 21, while the Richie Sexson bracket, featuring all class 2A ball clubs, began on Thursday, March 19.
The 2A Greater St. Helens League was represented by the Ridgefield Spudders in the Richie Sexson bracket. The Spudders gained all around experience in their tournament opener against Anacortes High School, resulting in a 1-0 win on March 9.
One of the key aspects of the tournament is providing an opportunity to test against high-quality competition and shake off the rust from practice-heavy starts to the spring due to rainy weather. After limited game action, just a pair of scrimmages, leading into the opener, the Spudders capitalized on situational execution to manufacture the game’s lone run, pairing timely hitting with aggressive base running.
Spudder head coach Nick Allen said the timing of the tournament presented both challenges and benefits for his team as the squad transitioned from practices into game action.
“Our practices have kind of gotten a little stale because we’ve had so many of them and bouncing in and out of weather and stuff,” Allen said. “So I was a little worried today about what we’d get, but they came out and competed, did their job, you know. Obviously, there’s stuff to improve on in the early season.”
On the mound, Ridgefield saw a strong opening performance by Henry Wikstrom, who threw six innings with two hits allowed, four strikeouts and no walks. Allen highlighted the much anticipated return to the diamond of Reece Holmes, who threw in the seventh inning for the save in his first appearance since sophomore year after an injury.
The Spudders next found themselves on the wrong side of the win-loss column in the tournament with a 10-0 loss to Othello High School on Friday, March 20, and a close 8-6 loss to East Valley High School on Saturday, March 21.
A pair of non-league games, including a Wednesday, March 25, battle against the Battle Ground Tigers, will lead into the Spudders’ shift in focus toward the 2A GSHL season.
“It’s going to be a grind,” Allen said. “There’s nobody you can take a day off against in our league. Everybody’s got a guy. We’ve got to learn how to play the game the right way so that we don’t care who’s in the other dugout. We just come and beat the game of baseball. If we can do that, we’ll be OK.”
Also in the Kickoff Classic, the La Center Wildcats opened with a 10-0 win over Franklin Pierce High School on Friday, March 20, before an 11-1 loss to Montesano High School the next day. The Tigers also started with an 8-2 win over the Lake Washington Kangaroos, before a 9-4 loss to Kennedy Catholic High School. The Prairie Falcons suffered two losses in the tournament, first, a 12-2 loss to the Olympia Bears, and then an 8-5 loss to Union High School.
