The first batter of Saturday’s 3A bi-district baseball game, Peninsula’s Reid Sturn ripped a ball to the left side of the infield. Mountain View’s Gavin Trono dove hard to his left, snagged it cleanly and tossed over to first base for the out.
It gave the Thunder and staff ace Andrew Selden all the confidence they needed to roll to an 8-3 win over the Seahawks at Propstra Stadium. The victory clinches a state spot for the Thunder (20-1), its fourth this decade and second in three years.
“The first freaking play of the game, the diving stop and throw. That’s awesome,” Mountain View coach Aaron Coiteux said. “Once you see that behind you, you’re like, ‘OK. I don’t have my best stuff but my defense is going to be there.”
Selden wasn’t his peak self Saturday, but he gritted out five innings. He struck out seven and allowed just two runs and four hits. He also walked four.
His defense was superb. Trono replicated his diving stop in the fourth inning and Garrett Moen had a sliding catch in center field.
“When those plays come along, you have to be ready for them,” said Trono, who walked twice and stole home. “It’s playoff baseball. I have to make those plays for my team.”
Offensively, it took awhile for the Thunder to get going against Peninsula ace Trent Buchanan. The Seahawks (15-6) opted to conserve the junior hurler for the afternoon outing. and escaped with a 3-1 win over Bethel in the opening round Saturday.
Buchanan struck out three in 4.1 innings, before being removed shortly after Quinn Rooks belted his team-leading fourth home run of the season over the left-field wall to give the Thunder a 4-2 lead in the fifth inning.
“I was just looking dead red fastball,” Rooks said. “It was a 3-0 count and I was just trying to hit my pitch low and away.”
Rooks was 2-3 with a double and two runs to go with his homer. Isaiah Parker and Selden also doubled and Andrew Gulliford went 2-2.
“They’re good hitters and they understand the game,” Coiteux said. “They just played well.”
After a five-run fifth inning, which featured Trono’s steal of home, an Aaron Hsu sacrifice fly and Moen’s RBI single to center field, the Thunder was well on the way to a bi-district semifinal date with South Sound Conference’s No. 3 seed Timberline (12-10), which beat Pierce County League top seed Wilson 4-0 Saturday.
That game is slated for 11 a.m. Saturday at Heidelberg Park in Tacoma. The championship game is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. that day.
“We’ll celebrate for a little now but once Monday comes we have to practice, and stay humble and hungry,” Trono said. “We have bigger goals.”
Aaron Hsu closed out Saturday’s game with two innings of one-run ball. The Thunder tallied nine hits and committed one error. Moen had an RBI walk in the fourth inning to tie the game at 2-2, and Parker and Selden hit doubles in the first inning to put the Thunder on the board.
