KingCo 4A baseball | Bothell survives injury scare, tops No. 2 Redmond

WOODINVILLE — "Group hug," coach Paul Moody said, and then all of his Bothell players piled into one another along the third-base line to celebrate a win that few, including Moody, thought probable.

A thrilling 7-5 victory against second-ranked Redmond on Thursday night gave Bothell its first KingCo 4A tournament baseball championship in four years. But it also gave the Cougars quite a scare.

A few feet from where the Cougars celebrated, Bothell's Alex Reynolds earlier lay still for eight frightening minutes in the top of the seventh. An 0-2 fastball hit Reynolds near his left eye and he immediately fell to the ground. With the crowd nearly silent, trainers rushed to the field and bandaged and stitched Reynold's wounds.

"As soon as we saw him conscious and alert, we were OK," Moody said, later adding, "In a funny way, it was a big part of the game."

Bothell trailed 5-4 with one out when Reynolds was hit, giving the Cougars a crucial runner. After Cory Burk walked, Kurt Stottlemyer slapped a single to right for the tying run. A wild pitch brought home the go-ahead run, and Bothell added another on a passed ball. Bothell's three seventh-inning runs came on only one hit.

In the bottom of the seventh, left fielder Ian McKay made a diving catch on the Redmond leadoff batter and Dan Konen came back in to save the game he started.

"That was probably the most intense game I've ever played in," McKay said.

Bothell led 4-1 before Redmond's Landon Morris hit a tying, three-run home run in the fifth. In the sixth, Tim Wilson, who reached base four times, hit an RBI single to put the Mustangs ahead 5-4.

Both teams advance to state, but Bothell (16-7) will begin the round of 16 in Kent; Redmond (19-3) travels to Spokane.

Loser-out game

Lake Wash. 11, Inglemoor 2

Lake Washington broke a 2-2 tie with a four-run fifth and a five-run sixth to keep its season alive for at least two more days.

After earning KingCo 4A's third seed, the Kangaroos (15-9) will play Battle Ground, the second-place team from the Greater St. Helens League, in a winner-to-state, loser-out game at 2 p.m. Saturday at Propstra Stadium in Vancouver.

Chris Hashimoto, who went 3 for 3, hit a two-run homer and Joey Semler had a two-run single in LW's big fifth. Kurt Wagner homered for Inglemoor (13-11).