SELAH — The Port Angeles girls softball team finished second at state for the second time, the Port Angeles baseball team won its first game at the state tournament since 2001 and a pair of athletes from Sequim and Port Angeles won district championships in track and field.
That was a summation of this weekend’s local postseason sports featuring Olympic Peninsula teams and athletes.
At the top of that list is the Port Angeles softball team, which came within one run of winning the state championship. The Roughriders, behind star pitcher Heidi Leitz, dominated during its state tournament run, beating Cedarcrest 10-0, Woodland 8-1 and Mark Morris 1-0 in the semifinal game.
Leitz fired a no-hitter against Cedarcrest and a one-hitter against Woodland, but her performance against Mark Morris was truly legendary. She not only pitched a perfect game, she struck out 19 out of the 21 batters she faced.
In the championship game, the Riders went up against pitcher Lilly Camp and her Aberdeen teammates. Leitz and teammate Lynzee Reid kept the Bobcats in check, allowing only two runs, but Camp was nearly unhittable, striking out 13 Riders. Lexie Smith had an RBI double in the title game to get the Riders within one run at 2-1, but that was all the damage the Port Angeles batters could do. Camp finished the season with an astounding 342 strikeouts.
It was the second straight season that Port Angeles placed at the state softball tournament. The Riders finished fourth last year. They came in second at state in 2017, when the team was led by star pitcher Nizhoni Wheeler, who went on to have a successful career at Lower Columbia College.
Baseball
Port Angeles had some really good baseball teams in the 2010s, but the Riders also had a lot of heartbreak at the state 2A tournament during that stretch with four one-run losses in the first round. In fact, the Riders had lost eight straight in the first round of the state tournament dating way back to 2002.
No more. For the first time in 24 years, Port Angeles won a game at the state tournament, a hard-fought 10-inning 6-4 victory over Tumwater. And they did it after storming back from a 4-10-1 start to the season.
Alex Angevine was the hero of this game. First, he had two hits and scored three runs, but more importantly, he came in to pitch the final 3⅔ innings as neither team could break the 4-4 tie. Normally the team’s shortstop, Angevine struck out five batters in that stretch and gave up just one hit.
Josiah Gooding finally helped the Riders win with a clutch go-ahead RBI single in the 10th.
Luke Flodstrom also had a big game, going 3-for-4 with two RBIs.
In the second-round elite eight game, the Riders went up against Selah, the No. 3 seed in the tournament, but ranked No. 1 in Washington in Ratings Percentage Index.
The Riders had a 3-1 lead early, but Selah broke through for three runs in the fourth and four more in the fifth to pull away. The Riders tried to battle back with two runs in the sixth, but that was as close as they could get in a 9-5 loss. Nathan Basden and Josiah Gooding both went 3-for-4 with Gooding hitting a double and driving in two runs. Trae Hanan had a two-run single.
Port Angeles finished the season going 9-2 over its last 11 games, which included a 4-2 record in postseason. The Riders finished with a record of 13-12-1 with several seniors on the team signing on to play baseball at two- and four-year schools next year.
Track, tennis
In track and field, Port Angeles got a district champion in javelin thrower Teanna Clark. It was the second straight year that Clark won the district title. She finished third at the state 2A track meet last year.
Clark’s best throw of the year was 134 feet, 2 inches, which is tops at the 2A level statewide. She won district with a throw of 122-4. Clark throws in the javelin Thursday at the state 2A meet at Mount Tahoma High School.
Also a district champion is Sequim’s Clare Turella, the defending state champion in the girl’s high jump. Turella won district with a jump of 5-3, higher than the 5-2 she jumped at state last year.
In boys’ tennis, Port Angeles’ Basden and Flodstrom had a hectic weekend. They qualified as a doubles team for the state tennis tournament last fall. The state tournaments are held in the spring, however, and that conflicted with the Port Angeles baseball team.
Basden and Flodstrom, who won district and league titles in tennis, competed at the state tennis meet Friday at the University of Washington, winning one of two matches. They competed in a consolation semifinal Saturday morning and lost a close one in three sets. They then hopped in a car and made a 2½-hour, 140-mile drive to Selah in time to be in the lineup for the Riders’ baseball team, which played Tumwater at 2 p.m. They combined to contribute eight hits on the day for the Roughriders, who played past 9 p.m. in their second game against Selah.
