Flag, Coco Softball Advances While Coco Baseball Falls At Salpointe, Flagstaff Wins At Home Saturday

Four of the five high school baseball and softball teams advanced to the next round of the baseball and softball state playoffs Saturday. Reese Elliott drove in a pair of runs as the 14th-seeded Flagstaff Eagles softball team stunned third-seed and previous unbeaten Eastmark Saturday, 6-4. KodyLynn Watson drove in the lone run as seventh-seeded Coconino beat 10th-seeded Mica Mountain, 1-0. Sophomore Kaitlyn Tso tossed a complete game, two-hit shutout and struck out 14. Coconino will travel to second-seeded Greenway, while Flagstaff heads to sixth-seeded Paradise Honors, both games are Tuesday with Coconino playing at 7 p.m., Flagstaff at 4 p.m. If both teams win, or lose, they will play each other in the next round. In the 2A, the third-seeded Northland Prep Spartans had no problem with 14th-seed Phoenix Christian, beating the Cougars 15-0. NPA scored 11 runs in the second inning en route to the win. The Spartans will take on sixth-seeded Round Valley Friday at the Papago Softball Complex at 5:30 p.m. Friday. In baseball it was a wild, back and forth affair but it was the seventh-seeded Flagstaff Eagles, led by freshman Lee Carpenter, who beat the 10th-seeded Walden Grove Red Hawks, 19-13. Carpenter was 3-for-3 and drove in three runs and also pitched five innings in the win. Sixteenth-seeded Coconino had a tall task as they went up against top-seeded Salpointe Catholic in Tucson. The Sentinals scored five runs in the third inning, but senior Tyler Ragan hit a grand slam in the fourth to get the Panthers to within one, but that’s it as Salpointe beat Coconino 5-4. The Eagles will play against second-seed Saguaro at Tempe Diablo Stadium Monday at 4 p.m.