HOQUIAM — Montesano jumped on Castle Rock early by exploding for seven runs in the first inning en route to a 10-0 victory in the opening round of the 1A District Playoffs Monday evening at Olympic Stadium.

The early hit parade led to seven straight Bulldog batters coming to the plate, tallying four walks and four hits.

They weren’t able to put the game away until Evan Bates’ single drove in a pair of runs in the sixth.

Monte coach Mike Osgood said he wanted to see his team stay hot after getting off to such a blistering start.

“We started fast, started hot but we kind of cooled off, unfortunately, but that’s baseball,”he said. “We made some changes and got a lot of guys in the game but we missed some opportunities here and there that could have tuned this into a five-inning game.”

One of the changes that Osgood made to the line up came after Carson Klinger went down with an ankle injury while throwing the ball back into the infield after a base hit.

Klinger went down and was just barely able to get enough on the throw to hit the cutoff man and was able to walk off the field under his own power.

Osgood said the injury does not seem to be as serious as it originally appeared.

“He said he heard a pop but he wanted to go back in,” he said. “It’s just one of those games where if we needed him we might have put him back out there but (the game) was already in hand at that point in time.”

The big lead allowed the pitching staff to relax a bit with an eight-run cushion to work with by the end of the third inning.

Nate Kloempken, Ben Wills and Trevor Ridgway combined for a two-hit shutout, with each throwing relatively low pitch counts.

“When you get into tournament play you always want to save arms as best you can,” Osgood said. “We kept Nate right at 29 (pitches), which means he can pitch against La Center if we need him. That was the big thing, trying to keep everybody fresh and not burn anybody up.”

The win not only puts the Bulldogs on the right path toward a district title, but boosts the squad’s confidence as the opponents only figure to get better.

Osgood said hen enjoyed watching his team have fun on the field behind a shutout pitching performance.

“All in all, it was a good outing. Nate, Trevor and Ben all threw really well for us and it was good team win. All the kids had fun,” he said.

Montesano 701 002 – 10 8 0

Castle Rock 000 000 – 0 2 3

WP — Kloempken (2 IP, 3 K); LP — Patching (1.1 IP, 6 ER)

Leading Hitters: M — Bates (3-4, 2 RBI, 2 R), Gallinger (2-2, BB, RBI, 2B), Zillyett (2B, BB, R)