Braves clinch District top seed with twin wins

The rain last week did nothing to dampen the spirits of the La Conner High baseball team.

Quite the opposite, actually.

The Braves weathered scattered showers and wet field conditions to defeat league rival Orcas 6-1 and clinch a share of the NW2B title with Concrete.

La Conner players already had plenty of reason to be in sunny moods. That’s because the Braves on Tuesday had drubbed Darrington 17-6 in a key road test.

The two-game conference sweep gives La Conner, by virtue of winning a tie-breaker with the Lions, top seeding going into this week’s District Tournament.

That’s a huge development.

For starters, it means the Braves host their District opener tomorrow, Thursday, at 4 p.m. with either the Loggers or Tacoma Baptist.

La Conner won both its matchups with Darrington this spring and edged the Tacoma club 9-8 in a mid-season non-league pairing.

By contrast, losing the tie-breaker dropped Concrete to the tourney’s third seed, forcing the Lions to play at Seattle Lutheran tomorrow.

First round winners advance to the District title round Saturday in Stanwood.

With forecasts gray and glum, La Conner made hay early in the final week of the regular season. The Braves bolted to a 6-0 lead over Darrington in the top of the first inning and never looked back.

Max Miller delivered a two-run double, and Logan James ripped an RBI single to ignite the early onslaught.

La Conner would score in every frame but the fifth, providing ample support for Braves’ starter Erick Reinstra, who cruised to his third mound triumph on the campaign.

Reinstra tossed a tidy four-hitter and fanned five Darrington hitters.

It was the James Gang that led La Conner’s hit parade against the Loggers.

Logan James crushed a solo homer to go along with his safety in the opening stanza. Wil James, meanwhile, went three-for-three at the dish, with two doubles.

Miller took the hill for La Conner two days later opposite Orcas, with the NWB crown hanging in the balance.

He responded, as had Reinstra on Tuesday, with a virtuoso performance.

Miller struck out 12 and was reached for only two hits, yielding just a lone unearned tally over five innings.

“With the field conditions being so poor,” La Conner coach Jeremiah LeSourd said afterward, “there was no such thing as routine. But Max wasn’t affected by the weather and took the pressure off his defense.”

It was again the James brothers who paced La Conner’s attack.

Wil James doubled in the first inning and scored the Braves’ initial run on a Logan James single. La Conner then seized control of the game by posting a five-spot in the third.

Wil James delivered a run-scoring base knock in the decisive inning, while Miller and Sean Hulbert each ripped two-run singles.

With its late season surge, which saw La Conner win eight of 12 games, the Braves enter post-season with a 9-10 overall mark. Most of those setbacks came during a brutal stretch in which the Braves faced a pre-league slate of teams from larger enrollment schools.