The early results of the Whidbey Island Nighthawks baseball experiment are  mixed.

This year, all three Whidbey Island high schools decided to combine players and resources to form two summer baseball teams rather than go it alone.

One of those teams is going strong; the other, however, disbanded after competing less than a month.

For the past 25 years, Oak Harbor High School has had at least one summer team, and sometimes two. In the 1990s, it was the only summer program for high-school aged kids on the island, and although the team was based out of Oak Harbor, it included several Coupeville and South Whidbey players.

After about five years the volume of Oak Harbor summer players grew and the team became exclusively for Oak Harbor students. A sprinkle of Coupeville players were added in the past decade.

South Whidbey sporadically fielded its own team, which included Coupeville kids in recent years.

Because of its small enrollment, Coupeville rarely put together its own summer club.

Players leaving

With the growth of the select-team programs in the Everett-Seattle-Tacoma region, more Whidbey Island players are heading south each summer, making it difficult for the local teams to fill out rosters.

Oak Harbor High School coach Tyson VanDam said he approached Coupeville’s Marc Aparicio and South Whidbey’s Tom Fallon about joining forces to ensure those athletes who did not have the wish, time or financial resources to go off island had a place to play summer ball.

Aparicio and Fallon liked the idea, about 35 players committed in the spring to take part and the Nighthawks were born.

The hope was that the combining of teams would not only provide a place for Whidbey Island athletes to play but make the teams more competitive, VanDam said.

Oak Harbor, for example, had enough players to make one team, but it would need to use middle school students to fill out the squad, forcing those younger players to try to compete in a division above their talent level.

This summer, two Legion teams, an AA club (mostly seniors-to-be and some talented underclassmen) and an A club (generally sophomores and younger), were formed.

The AA team, however, lasted only a few weeks into the season. For a variety of reasons, a number of players withdrew and the team folded, leaving the six or seven athletes remaining nowhere to play this summer.

Several of the younger players were absorbed by the A team.

VanDam said it’s a flukey situation and the idea of combining in the future isn’t dead.

A-Okay

The A team, coached by Oak Harbor High School assistants Cody Anderson and JR Calderwood, has a bulging roster of 21. Seven of the players (Ty Eck, Nick Etzell, Matt Hilborn, Elliott Johnson, Shane Losey, Dane Lucero and Jake Pease) are from Coupeville.

“It’s been a good fit for the entire island,” Anderson said.

The combining of schools is “a great idea,” Calderwood said.

“The kids are awesome, and it’s a fun dynamic putting the kids in different situations,” Calderwood added. “The kids are fun and have a great attitude.”

He said a strong parent group has helped make the season successful: “They are really involved and communicate well, which makes my job easier.”

The only drawback, Calderwood said, is that the three schools are on different schedules, which affects what time the players can show up to games.

Calderwood praised the growth of the players over the first month of the season: “Beginning to end, we are a different team; we are getting better all the time.

“The primary goal, especially with the A team, is player development, and it is going well.”

This group is “baseball savvy,” Calderwood added. “You can replace a lot of talent with knowledge at this level.”

Close losses

The success of the season, however, isn’t showing up in the standings. After dropping a doubleheader to Burlington Wednesday in Oak Harbor, Whidbey Island’s record fell to 3-11.

“We are having trouble closing out games,” Calderwood said. “If the games were only five innings, we would have a winning record.”

Anderson pointed out that the Nighthawks are the youngest team in the league, one of a few with eighth graders.

The Nighthawks aren’t piling up wins but they are competitive. Five of the losses have been by one run and only one has been by more than four.

The Nighthawks will compete in a tournament this weekend in Anacortes.