AA Region I Baseball -- Prep's Detrick Outduels Brester; O'dea Ousted

BELLINGHAM - Seattle Prep's Mike Detrick pitched a two-hitter as the Panthers beat fifth-ranked Burlington-Edison 4-2 yesterday to advance to the championship game of the Class AA Region I baseball tournament.

Unranked Seattle Prep, 19-4 after beating Burlington-Edison, last night played Bellingham's Sehome for the regional championship and a berth in next weekend's state semifinals.

Sehome eliminated O'Dea 4-3 yesterday.

Detrick (8-2), a senior right-hander, outdueled highly touted Jason Brester (8-2), who came into the game with an earned-run average of 0.11. Brester, a senior left-hander, struck out 10, walked two and allowed five hits. Detrick struck out six and walked three.

Brester has signed a letter-of-intent to pitch for the University of Washington next season, but is expected to be drafted in the first five rounds of next month's amateur draft.

"I wanted to prove to myself I can hang with someone like that," Detrick said of Burlington-Edison's Brester. "I was really thankful for the offense. Four runs is a lot of runs off a guy like that."

"We knew Brester was a good pitcher," Seattle Prep Coach Ed Paulter said, "and we had to go station to station on him. We had to respect him, and then beat him."

Seattle Prep broke a scoreless tie with a run in the fourth when Max Engel's double drove in Kevin Murray, who had walked.

In the sixth, The Panthers added three more runs on RBI-doubles by Murray and Engel, and an run-scoring infield single by Tom Bligh.

That appeared to be more than enough of a cushion for Detrick, who had retired 15 consecutive batters after allowing a second-inning single to the Tigers' Tyson Boston.

In the Burlington-Edison seventh, however, Detrick walked the first two batters and gave up only his second hit - a two-run double to Boston. With the tying run at the plate, Detrick struck out the next two batters and got the final out on a ground ball back to the pitcher.

"I started aiming it instead of throwing it," Detrick said of his rocky seventh. "I tensed up a little bit."

His coach, Paulter, said, "I thought the most impressive thing was the way (Detrick) reached back in the seventh inning. He faced adversity and got the job done."

Sehome 4, O'Dea 3 - Third-ranked Sehome needed four runs in the final two innings to overcome the Metro League champions. Trailing 3-0, the Mariners scored twice in the sixth, then won it with two runs in the seventh.

O'Dea's Nick Stefonick pitched a one-hit shutout for five innings, then surrendered four hits in the sixth, four more in the seventh.

Sehome loaded the bases in the sixth, and O'Dea gave up a run for a double play. But Ryan Binning delivered a two-out, run-scoring double, reducing the Irish lead to 3-2.

In the Sehome seventh, with one out, Merrill Bevan singled and Justin Hamborsky doubled off the left-field wall to place runners at second and third. The Irish issued an intentional walk to clean-up batter Paul Lockhart, then Ryan Frenna, on a 1-and-2 count, slapped a single through the hole betwen third and shortstop for the tying run. Adam Kim followed with another grounder through the infield for the game-winning run.

"That's baseball," O'Dea Coach Mark Zender said. "It's a cliche and everything, but you don't know it's over until it's done. Credit Sehome, they hit the ball when they had to and kept battling. We're a good team, but we just didn't finish strong."

Keith Koskela, a junior right-hander who had had given ukp only one earned run in 49 innings, went the distance for his ninth win without a loss. He was touched for an unearned run in the fourth on Sean Harvey's RBI single, but surrendered two earned runs in the fifth on a run-scoring double by James Henry and Nate Hare's RBI single.

O'Dea got three of its six hits in the fifth inning.

The Irish finished the season with a 16-5 record.

"We had a good year," Zender said. "We had a good enough team to win it all."