Bears battle back from the brink to win state baseball title

RIDGEFIELD – With a flourish and finish more suitable for a fairy tale ending, the Brewster varsity baseball team - for the second time over two days - snatched victory from the closing jaws of defeat by staging a final inning rally to claim the 2022 state 2B championship in a fashion that fans will be talking about for years to come.

The Bears entered post season play with a 20-2 record and the best RPI ranking of any other state 2B team.

“Our schedule has been very beneficial this year,” said head coach Todd Phillips of the solid competition Brewster faced during its regular season schedule. “Seven games versus teams in their divisions’ top ten, nine more against teams in their divisions’ top 20, That is going to pay off down the road.”

The prediction was spot-on when the Bears had to dig deep against strong Final Four rivals.

Toutle Lake drained

The Toutle Lake Ducks had the game all but in the bag with a 6-1 lead heading into the top of the seventh inning and just three Brewster outs standing between them and the state title.

The late sportscaster Don Meredith might have sung: “Turn out the lights, the party’s over” but Brewster fans know by now that you should never count the Bears out.

The Bears rallied to score six runs in the top of the seventh to take a 7-6 lead and kept the lid on any Toutle Lake response. The previous day in semifinal play Brewster recovered from a 5-0 fourth inning Chewelah lead to post five runs through the fifth and sixth innings, take a 6-5 advantage into the top of the seventh and shut down the Cougars to preserve the win.

Bears chew Chewelah

“This was the type of game that we expected a dog fight to get to the title game,” said head coach Todd Phillips

Chewelah took the early lead, but Brewster cut that by two runs when Woodward tripled and scored on an error. Tyson Schertenleib tripled immediately after Woodward and scored on a Brady Wulf one-out single.

In the bottom of the fifth, Schertenleib threw out a Cougar base runner at home plate.

“It was just a great throw which really set the tone for us in the top of the sixth,” Phillips said.

The Bears added four runs in the sixth inning to take the one-run lead “which proved to be enough,” Phillips said.

Woodward singled for his second hit of the game and stole second. Nico Maldonado walked, and Wulf singled in Woodward.  Eric Ramirez loaded the bases on a hit-by-pitch. Arnie Arevalo drove in two with a single to tie the score 5-5. Blake Burgett loaded the bases when he was hit by a pitch. Grant Baker hit a sacrifice fly to score Ramirez on what the coach said was a fairly close play at the plate. That gave the Bears the 6-5 lead and eventually the game.

When Burgett backed up first on an overthrow and gunned a runner at second that was a tone setter Phillips said.

“Despite all the mistakes we made, we just did the little things right and it was a game changer,” said Phillips. “Everyone stepped up in different ways, everyone reconciled their mistakes by coming through, our two seniors really stepped up and big ways. That is how a state semi-final should be.” 

Brewster v Chewelah

                        1          2          3          4          5          6          7          R          H          E 

Brewster          0          0          0          2          0          4          0          6          9          5 

Chewelah        2          0          3          0          0          0          0          5          6          1 

W-AJ Woodward (9-1) 

L-Zach Bowman 

S-None 

2B-None 

3B-Brewster: AJ Woodward (3), Tyson Schertenleib (3); Chewelah: None 

HR-None