Coeur d'Alene Lumbermen finish second at Western Invitational
Coeur d’Alene left Hyrum with a second-place finish and four all-tournament players, a sign the Lumbermen’s depth is carrying into the summer stretch.
Coeur d’Alene’s trip to Hyrum, Utah, ended with a runner-up finish that showed the Lumbermen can lean on more than one arm or bat when the pressure rises. The North Idaho club beat the Rigby Mustangs 18U 7-2 in the semifinals at Mountain Crest High, then fell 7-0 to the Burley Green Sox A in the championship game at East Park to finish second at the Western Invitational.
The weekend pointed to a roster that is producing across the lineup. Four Lumbermen were named to the all-tournament team: JD Davenport, Colton Nordman, Evan Huss and Jack Pierce. That spread of recognition matched the way Coeur d’Alene moved through the bracket, with different players stepping in at different moments over games played June 27-28 at East Park and Mountain Crest High.
Coeur d’Alene opened the tournament with a 9-3 win over the Laramie Rangers 18U on June 27, then dropped a 10-0 decision to the Mountain Crest Trappers of Hyrum later that day. In the semifinal against Rigby, Jack Pierce delivered the biggest swing with a solo home run and three RBIs, while Aven Adams and Logan Strimback each had three hits. Strimback added an RBI triple, and Davenport worked a complete game, allowing seven hits and striking out four.
The final was a tougher test. Burley held Coeur d’Alene to two hits, and Ike Redder struck out three Lumbermen as the Green Sox closed out the title game. Coeur d’Alene finished 2-3 at the tournament and stood at 7-11 overall after the Utah trip, but coach Sean MacNiven said the weekend still reflected a group that kept competing. “It was a long weekend and our boys fought hard to the end,” MacNiven said, adding that the players “worked together as a team and made us coaches proud.”
That matters in a program where the next stop is already on deck. The Lumbermen moved on to the Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Wood Bat Classic at Thorco Field, where pool-play games were scheduled for 4:30 and 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday after the Utah event. American Legion Baseball remains a major summer pipeline, with the Lumbermen’s club noting that it includes more than 5,400 teams across all 50 states, Canada and Puerto Rico, nearly 100,000 players ages 13 to 19 each year, and about 60 percent of current college players as program graduates.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
Did this article answer your question?
