Lumbermen roll to Area A title

TRAIL, British Columbia - They had already qualified for the state AA American Legion baseball tournament, but winning on Sunday was important to the Coeur d'Alene Lumbermen.

"One of our goals was to win the district tournament again - we had lost it the last couple of years," Lums coach Lloyd Duman said after Coeur d'Alene scored 12 runs in the first inning and went on to rout Prairie 15-1 in seven innings in the championship game of the Area A (district) tournament at Butler Park.

Coeur d'Alene (39-19) goes to state as the top seed, and opens against the Pocatello Runnin' Rebels, the second seed from the Area C tournament, on Wednesday at 3 p.m. PDT at Skip Walker Field in Twin Falls.

Prairie (24-23) had already qualified for state heading into Sunday, and opens Wednesday vs. Treasure Valley of Ontario, Ore., the No. 1 seed from the Area B tourney, at noon.

In Wednesday's other state openers, Jerome (Area C No. 1 seed) plays the Eagle Vipers (Area B No. 3) at 9 a.m., and the Boise Gems (Area B No. 2) plays the tourney host Twin Falls Cowboys at 6 p.m.

On Sunday, Tyler Shaffer of Prairie hit the first pitch of the game over the right-field fence for a home run.

Coeur d'Alene responded in a big way in the bottom half, with Jason Pattis and Joe Roletto hitting two-run doubles, and Pete Hoffman adding a two-run single.

With its first state bid since 2003 already in hand, Prairie coach Dustin Frank rested several of his regulars on Sunday.

"Everyone on our team works real hard, and deserved to play," he said. "And you never know when one of those (bench) players are going to need to come up with a clutch hit at state."

Grant Curtis scattered four hits and struck out seven for Coeur d'Alene, which won its first Area A title since 2008, its fourth in the last six years, and its seventh in the last 13 years.

"Prairie played awesome this weekend," Duman said. "They really earned their spot; they played some great baseball. The game they played today was not indicative of how they played the rest of the tournament."

Prairie 100 000 0 - 1 4 4

Coeur d'Alene (12)20 100 x - 15 12 1

Kurt South, Tyler Burnett (1), Eric Cooper (3), Joe Schwalbach (5) and Howell; Grant Curtis and Kaleb DeHaas. W - Curtis. L - South.

HITS: Pra - Shaffer, Givens, Howell, Mobeck. Cd'A - Comack 2, Roletto 2, Pattis 2, Curtis, Hoffman 2, Bevacqua, Nyquist, DeHaas. 2B - Givens, Roletto, Pattis 2, Bevacqua. HR - Shaffer.