After cruising through the regular season, the Cruisers found themselves among the 16 teams that would continue their season at the WIAA 2A State Fastpitch Championships in Selah, WA over the Memorial Day weekend. The Cruisers faced the reigning 2A Fastpitch player of the year in senior Olivia Grey. She would handcuffed the Cruisers all day on her way to a 13 strikeout no-hitter and a 10-0 shutout of the Cruisers. This dropped the Cruisers out of contention for the state title, but not out of the tournament. They moved into the loser portion of the bracket and faced the Olympic Trojans.
Eatonville took the lead early in the first inning when Kaitlyn Rath drew a walk with the bases loaded that scored Bailey Porter.
The game stayed 1-0 into the top of the seventh inning when Olympic took the lead, 2-1. The Cruisers would be staring at a season ending loss if they weren’t able to answer back. Answer back they did.
Bailey Porter led off the inning with a walk. Brooklynn Lucht singled to left. Dakota Smith was hit by a pitch to load up the bases.
With no outs, Senior Kaitlyn Rath stepped to the plate and crush a double to center field that scored Porter and Lucht to give the Cruisers the come from behind victory, 3-2, and keep them Cruisers alive in the tournament. The next game saw the Cruisers taking on the East Valley Red Devils. he two teams exchanged runs all game until they found themselves tied at 9-9 after the seventh inning. On to the extra innings they went.
With one out and Dakota Smith and Kaitlyn Rath on base, Haley Olson stepped up and hit the first pitch over the center field fence to give the Cruisers a 12-9 lead. The firepower wouldn’t stop there though. After a Madison Miller single, Hailey Rath launched a pitch over the center field wall as well for another home run that increased the Cruiser lead to 14-9.
The Cruiser rally continued until the Cruisers scored a total of 11 runs in the inning to take a 20-9 lead into the bottom of the eighth inning. The Red Devils could only muster one run before pitcher Haley Olson struck out the final batter to give the Cruisers the 20-9 win. Eatonville then moved on to face the Tumwater Thunderbirds. The Cruisers fell behind early and were never able erase the deficit , They fell to the T-Birds 9-4. Dakota Smith hit a home run for the Cruisers.
That ended the Cruisers season as they would finish in 7th place in the state. Their overall record for the year would be 26-5.
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