Cannons off to state American Legion tourney

Spokane Cannons' head coach Chad Ripke gets a second chance at a state championship in the span of two months.

Ripke, who guided his Freeman Scotties to third place in the state 1A tournament in May in Yakima, will now lead the Spokane Cannons to the American Legion AAA tournament in nearby Selah.

The Cannons, who feature four West Plains players, two each from Cheney and Medical Lake, won the Spokane League championship last week and are a No. 1 seed and play Saturday at 4 p.m. against Bellingham Post 7.

"I like how my team is playing and if we can continue to pitch it as well as we have then we have a great opportunity," Ripke wrote in an email.

Ripke has his two pitching aces slated for the Cannons' opening pair of games and the first assignment goes to Medical Lake's Cory Wagner. "Cory Wagner has pitched it really well all summer long and will get the ball in game one," Ripke said. His Freeman player, McKabe Cottrell will get the start in game two.

"Game three will depend on what relievers we had to use in games one and two," Ripke said. Either Jared Smith, Chance Gleave or Thomas Edwards will get the start.

The state tournament runs July 23 – 28 with teams playing three pool play games. The top two teams advance, while the others are done.

Currently the Cannons are 25-15 overall, having won 12 of their last 15 games. Included were four straight in league play and three of those last week.

The Cannons beat the Bandits 1-0 July 12, won a strange forfeit contest the following night over the Northstars and raced past the Northeast 49ers 13-3, July 14.

The game against the Bandits was the "rubber-match" of a three-game series the teams played over the season. Having split the previous two, the game would break the tie atop the standings.

"We scored one (run) in the first inning and Cory did the rest," Ripke said. Wagner pitched eight innings, recorded 10 strikeouts and gave up just three hits. Cottrell came in for the save, struck out two and gave up an infield hit.

The following night, trailing 4-3, a Northstars' runner made contact with the Cannons' first baseman following a bunt. Umpires ruled the contact to be malicious and the Northstars' player was ejected, leaving them with not enough players to finish the game.

The previous week the Cannons also won a forfeit game against the Bandits, who had a number of coaches and a player ejected for bad conduct and umpires refused to continue working the game.

"It is weird to win on a forfeit once in a year, but to do it twice was very unique," Ripke said. The week's worth of wins gave the Cannons their first league title since 2003.

While Ripke was dealing with just one school in spring, during the summer he's crafting a lineup with five, including Freeman, Central Valley and University.

"Overall this has been a very fun summer and the kids are a great bunch that have jelled together, even though we draw from five different schools," Ripke said.

A number of players, including Medical Lake's Brayden Hale, all have playoff experience from the spring and Ripke's counting on that.

"We have a bunch of guys that have been in these types of atmospheres, so I hope they can lean on previous experiences they have had with school ball and play relaxed like they have all year," Ripke said.

"The key to us winning is pitching and defense though," he added.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.