3A baseball postgame quotes: Columbia River

Transcripts of interviews with Columbia River following Camas’ 3-2 victory over the Chieftains in a 3A state baseball semifinal game on Friday at Safeco Field in Seattle.

Columbia River coach Stephen Donohue

On the 11-inning game being close from start to finish:

I knew it was going to be that way coming in. Two really pretty evenly matched teams. We had two really close games with them during the regular season. And then I knew it was going to be a close game.

My guys gave everything they had. We just fell one out short.

They won one of the games in the regular season on a walk off, as well.

We used a lot of guys today and battle, and couldn’t come up with a couple clutch hits earlier in the game that might have got the job done.

On the pitching performance by Skye Adams:

I knew he was going to do that. He’s been lights out for us in the playoffs, and just stepped up and threw a great game today. To hold that team to three hits is pretty incredible. Probably, they had the best average in the league during the regular season, and they hit like .350 off us during league play. To do what he did was incredible.

On having to regroup for Saturday’s third-place game:

Obviously, it’s going to be a tough game to swallow, because we’ve been waiting to play (Camas) again for probably a month and a half at least. … My guys are pretty resilient. I’m sure we’ll get off the deck tomorrow and play as well as we can tomorrow and have pride.

This is where we wanted to be for three years. Might as well go all out. We’ve got 16 seniors, so I’m sure we’ll get a game plan together. They have everything they’ve got today.

Adams on taking Camas to the limit:

I’m extremely proud. We’ve been working since we were all sophomores. We were on the varsity team since sophomores, and we’ve been working since then with early-morning practices and workouts and everything, to get to where we were setting goals. I’m extremely proud of our team. Even though we lost, that was a great ball game. That team, they’re awesome. We did our best and they got us.

On how he felt on the mound:

I felt really comfortable. The first inning I was a little shaky. I was throwing high and couldn’t really hit the zone; I walked two guys straight off. Then I kind of calmed myself down and got back up there and started throwing strikes.

— B. Smith