Northshore softball teams are set for district tournament

Inglemoor, North Creek and Bothell advance past 4A KingCo tourney.

Inglemoor, North Creek and Bothell’s softball teams all qualified for the 4A Wes-King District Tournament, which starts May 10 at Phil Johnson Fields in Everett.

In the 4A KingCo tournament on May 3, Inglemoor beat Mount Si, 11-7, to advance.

The Vikings tallied nine runs in the bottom of the third to take a 9-3 lead and added two runs in the sixth. Kennadi Wuebel had three hits and Sophia Fike added two hits. Taylor Waara pitched five innings and Fike finished off the game from the mound.

Inglemoor received RBIs from O’nalisa Hall with two and one each from Wuebel, Waara, Maddy Brown, Emma Flugstad, Hailey King and Caroline Pohl.

”I think we’ve been working really well together as a team and we continue to string our hits together,” said King, adding that they struggled to achieve that at the beginning of the season, but they’ve since turned it around.

King praised Waara and Fike’s pitching performances against Mount Si as well as the players cheering each other on from the bench.

She’s hopeful that the Viks will continue hitting strong at districts.

“I think putting the pressure on the pitchers within the first few innings,” King said of their hitting game plan. “We wanna start out scoring the runs first so that we put the pressure on them to try and get runs.”

North Creek defeated Bothell, 6-3, to make districts.

Jaguar freshman Libby Peoples homered, singled and pitched a complete game with 11 strikeouts. Also for North Creek, Reagan Ellis had a single and two RBIs.

Bothell’s Tatum Powers had three hits — including a homer — and Lizzy Olson added two hits.

North Creek head coach Chris Pinder said his team is “super excited about earning our first playoff win, being in the playoffs for the second straight year,” referring to the school’s two-year existence.

Pinder added that in year two, the players continue to grow and their team camaraderie is at a premium.

“My team understands what we’re trying to do. We’re an athletic group that is trying to drive the softball and fly around the bases, and we can introduce small ball when we need to, but we scored a ton of runs again this year,” he said.

The Cougars then played a loser-out game against Mount Si and blasted the competition with a 22-5 victory.

Powers nailed a grand slam and Katie Fodge also homered for Bothell, which also received two doubles apiece from Brooke Davis and Ena Borgen.