One state championship game got away but not the other for the PacWest Little League Intermediate all-star team in action at Luke Jensen Field in Vancouver that concluded Thursday, July 11.

PacWest -- the District 7 representative in the double elimination tournament for players age 12-13 -- started off the day needing to be beaten twice to be eliminated and was once by Evergreen of Vancouver by 6-4 score.

But the PacWest team came back to win the if-necessary championship in a 14-11 slugfest later in the day, earning a trip to Irvine, Calif. for Western Regionals starting this coming Friday at 12:30 p.m. against Montana.

The team is the first from District 7 at any level to reach regionals, where it will play for a World Series berth.

Evergreen scored first with one run in the first in the if-necessary game, then PacWest seemed to take complete control by scoring six in the bottom of the first and one in the second for a 7-1 advantage.

But Evergreen rallied for 10 runs in the top of the third to take an 11-7 lead.

Evergreen fell silent from there, however, and PacWest won it with three runs in the fourth and four in the fifth.

Christian Hagler led PacWest with four hits, while Bryson Beltran had two walks and four RBI and Casey Hillyard one walk and three RBI.

David Perkins struck out six Evergreen (District 4) batters in 3.2 innings of work and Hagler struck out four in 2.2 innings.

PacWest opened the tournament with a 14-3 victory over Glenwood of District 6 on Saturday, July 6, then rolled to championship action with a 9-8 win over the District 9 Bellevue Thunderbirds Sunday, July 7 and a 10-7 victory over Evergreen in the winner's bracket final played Tuesday, July 9. Evergreen bounced back to win the loser's bracket final the next day to set up the competition for championship action for Thursday.

Beltran struck out 11 in 4.1 innings and also led with two hits and two RBI in the loss taken in the first championship.

This is the first year the Intermediate division has been offered by Little League. It comes between the age 11-12 Majors and the age 13-14 Juniors divisions.

Intermediate is a "50/70" division, with a pitching mound that is 50 feet away from home plate and bases that are 70 feet apart.

Players for the state championship squad include Ryan Moormeier, Nicholas Hovland, David Perkins, Christian Hagler, Bryson Beltran, Casey Hillyard, Tyler Terlouw, Chris Coyle, Alex Ponce, Hayden Wood, Robert Jarata, Ricky Castillo and Shane Merritt.

Jon Moormeier is the team manager and Luke Hagler and Jim Hovland are serving as coaches.