Oak Harbor upset Ferndale 6-5 in the Legion baseball district tournament Friday, July 18, at Burlington-Edison High School.
Oak Harbor, the eighth seed, knocked Ferndale, the third seed, out of the tournament. It was Oak Harbor’s second straight upset; it topped fifth-seeded South Whidbey Thursday.
The Wildcats are one of four teams left vying for two state-tournament berths. They take on Mount Vernon, the only undefeated team remaining at district, at 3 p.m. Saturday, July 19.
If Oak Harbor wins, it will face the winner of Bellingham and Anacortes at 6:30 p.m. Saturday for a slot in the state tournament. That winner then would meet Mount Vernon for the district title at noon Sunday, July 20. Both teams in the championship game advance to state.
The regular season was dominated by four teams. Anacortes won the pennant with a 17-3 league record. Mount Vernon, Bellingham and Ferndale were just one game back at 16-4 in a three-way tie for second. From there, the records dropped off to 10-10 for South Whidbey and Arlington, tied for fifth, and 8-12 for Oak Harbor and Burlington.
Oak Harbor is the only team from the second division left in the district tournament, ousting Ferndale, the only top tier team to be booted so far.
The Oak Harbor upset of Ferndale came only five days after Ferndale clubbed the Wildcats 12-1 in the final regular-season game.
This time the Wildcats took an early lead, allowed the Golden Eagles to knot the score, regained a three-run lead and then withstood a Ferndale seventh-inning rally.
Oak Harbor stunned Ferndale for three first-inning runs. Kevyn Johnson singled and Anthony Stewart walked; both were moved up by Clay Doughty’s sacrifice.
Danny Wolfe, Trent Benson and Quentin Tungate followed with consecutive hits to score the three runs.
Ferndale scored one in the bottom of the first. It’s first two runners reached against Wildcat starter Avery Aguirre, then with two outs, one scored on a double. The damage could have been worse, but left fielder Tungate gunned down the second runner at the plate to end the inning.
Ferndale tied the game with two runs in the third on a hit and two errors.
Oak Harbor went up 6-3 in the fifth. Stewart walked and Doughty singled, then a pair of Ferndale errors off the bats of Benson and Preston Rankin accounted for the runs.
Ferndale rallied in its final at bat when its first six batters reached base but only two scored. A couple of fielder’s choices and ground out got Oak Harbor out of the inning.
None of Ferndale’s runs were earned as the Wildcats committed six errors.
Aguirre gave up six hits, struck out one and walked none.
Seven different Oak Harbor hitters recorded singles: Johnson, Stewart, Doughty, Wolfe, Benson, Tungate and Robert Herring.
