Oak Harbor wrapped up second place in the Wesco 3A baseball race and the No. 3 seed in the district tournament by drilling visiting Glacier Peak 13-1 in five innings Tuesday, May 3.
The Wildcats needed to win one in the two-game series with
the Grizzlies to keep Glacier Peak from leaping by them in the standings. The
two teams meet again today, May 4, at 4 p.m. in Snohomish in the regular season
finale, but the outcome will not affect Oak Harbor’s place in the final
standings.
Wesco champion Shorewood (18-2, 14-0) is the No. 1 district
seed and Northwest Conference champion Mount Vernon (15-4, 11-2) is the No. 2
seed.
The district tournament opens Saturday, May 7, at 1 p.m. at
the homes of the higher seeds. Oak Harbor (12-5-1, 9-4) will host the No. 5
Wesco team, either Glacier Peak (7-11, 6-7) or Meadowdale (7-12, 6-8).
In the win over Glacier Peak, Oak Harbor blended 12 sharp
hits with eight Grizzlies errors and a commanding pitching performance by Jay
Stout for the win.
Glacier Peak scored first in the top of the second when a
walk eventually came around to score on an infield hit.
The Wildcats bounced back in a big way with an eight-run
second.
Sam Glavick singled and then Jack Richter and Cory Cameron
walked pack the bags. An error off the bat of Justin Counts scored two runs.
Stout bunted for a base hit to reload the bases. Gabe Clark followed with a
two-run single, and Yale Rosen pushed home the fifth run with a sacrifice fly.
Josh Evans reached on an error, then Ryan Byrne doubled in
two more runs. Glavick followed with an infield hit, setting up a double steal
which netted the final run.
In the third, Oak Harbor added five more.
Counts and Stout singled and then scored when the Glacier
Peak pitcher fielded Clark’s bunt and overthrew first base.
Rosen followed with a 350-foot, line-drive home run that
rocketed over the right field fence.
Richter collected the final RBI on a ground out that scored
Evans who had got aboard on an error.
Stout took care of the GP offense by pitching a four-hitter.
He struck out two and walked two.
Oak Harbor coach Tyson VanDam said, “Jay pitched great.
Offensively, we hit the ball well. We worked on our approach yesterday in the
cages, worked on hitting the ball up the middle and it paid off.”
Rosen finished 2-for-2 with a home run and three RBI. Byrne
was 2-for-2 with a double and two RBI, Glavick 2-for-2 and Stout 2-for-4 with
two runs.
