Mercer Island rallies for state title

MEDICAL LAKE -The near 100-degree temperatures in Eastern Washington just might have grown old on the Mercer Island District 9 Little League champions?

So, they decided an extra day here for the Washington Little League Juniors state championships in Medical Lake was not a place they wanted to be, rallying to defeat Everett 9-6 Saturday at Holliday Field.

Mercer Island, which just needed one victory to finish the tournament with a perfect 4-0 record, erased a 5-0 Everett first-inning lead scoring twice in both the first, third and sixth, but took the lead 7-5 with a three-run fourth.

Everett lost its tournament opener to Mercer Island, 11-3 on July 16 and worked its way back through the losing team bracket to the title game. They needed a win Saturday, however, to force a winner-take-all Sunday rematch.

"Giving up five (runs) in the top of the first with a couple of errors and couple of walks and hit by pitches definitely was a rough way to start," Mercer manager Eric Dahlberg said after the game.

The big inning for the champs was the fourth where they finally slid into the lead where Rohan Parandekar doubled, Mattias Hoffstetter singled and Andy Skimming singled, each scoring one run.

"I knew we had seven at bats after that and I felt pretty good about making up those five runs," Dahlberg said. "It was just questioning whether we can shut them down?"

Mercer Island got big insurance runs in their half of the sixth. They then relied on pitching from Ethan Nguyen who went six innings striking out seven and an inning of relief from Cash Dahlberg whose lone strikeout ended the game.

"It was just a matter of stopping the bleeding and getting everybody to sort of remain positive," Eric Dahlberg said. "I had a lot of confidence that we would score some runs at some point."

Skimming went 2-for-2 with Cash Little and Theo Roodman both 2-for-3 and a pair of RBI, all part of an 11-hit attack.

Everett's big first inning was keyed when Parker Strago to hit into a fielder's choice that drove in a run. With the bases loaded, Emmett Davis was hit by a pitch, forcing in a run. Jackson Greinke hit a sacrifice fly, scoring one run and Isaac Taylor singled in a pair of runs.

No one had more than one hit for Everett.

In addition to the opener, Mercer Island collected tournament wins over South Hill, Puyallup 6-0, July 18 and Willapa Harbor 3-2, July 20.

Everett's road was a little longer as they defeated SW Seattle 11-2, July 18, South Hill, Puyallup 12-0, July 20 and Willapa Harbor 15-9, July 21 to reach the championship game.