The Pirates varsity baseball team traveled to Eastern Washington on Friday, April 2, to play the Cashmere Bulldogs and the Chelan Goats. Unfortunately, after the team sat in traffic for two hours waiting for Snoqualmie Pass to re-open, snow canceled the Friday game with Cashmere.
On Saturday — with 45-degree sunny skies and winds gusting to 25 miles an hour — the team traveled north for a double-header in Chelan. Strong pitching and solid defense dominated game one, with the Pirates prevailing in a 3-2 win.
Senior Wes Paulsen pitched a complete game, striking out seven. Chelan pitchers struck out 14 Pirates and allowed just three hits, but two of them were long balls from the bat of sophomore Julian Smith.
In the top of the second, with Paul-sen reaching base on an error, Smith crushed a fastball over the left field fence for a two-run homer. In the fourth, he connected again for a solo wind-aided home run to left center. Smith now has four home runs for the season. Junior Peter Johnson added a single to right field in the third inning but was left stranded at second.
The Pirate defense was solid with consistent play by senior shortstop Matt Amick, the pickoff of a Goat runner at third by catcher Johnson and an outstanding diving catch by second baseman Smith in the fifth.
In game two, Vashon jumped on the Goats for three quick runs in the first.
Peter Johnson led off the game with a double down the right field line; senior Joe Gilmour reached first base on a single, and Matt Amick walked to load the bases. Junior left-fielder Matt Dick delivered a key base hit to right field for two RBIs. Senior pitcher Matt Amick retired the Goats in order in the bottom of the first.
In the bottom of the second, the Goats scored one quickly and were threatening with a runner at third when they attempted a suicide squeeze. The batter couldn’t bunt an Amick curve ball, and Johnson tagged out the runner coming home.
The Pirates added two runs in the top of the third, and in the bottom of the inning the Goats scored three, but the Pirate defense soon stepped up.
Left-fielder Matt Dick charged a line drive single and threw a rope to Johnson who tagged a runner trying to score. The inning ended when Johnson threw out a Goat attempting to steal.
In the top of the fourth, sophomore Joe Wald recorded his second varsity hit, and in the bottom, Pirate center-fielder freshman Zach Drape made two excellent diving catches to stop a Goat charge.
In the top of the fifth, Amick, Paulsen and Dick combined for three singles to add one run, and in the seventh, Smith added a double to score Gilmour, who had reached on an error.
Amick pitched a complete game, striking out six, as the Pirates recorded a 7-5 win.
“While we didn’t hit as we would have liked, we had outstanding pitching by Wes Paulsen and Matt Amick, and stellar defense by catcher Peter Johnson — who was brilliant for 14 innings behind the plate — along with a couple of big catches by center-fielder Zach Drape and Matt Dick in left field,” said Coach Steve Hall.
The Pirates’ infield was “solid,” he said, with Amick and Smith at shortstop, Ben Reoux at second and Paulsen at first.
“Smith was huge with his bat, and it really sparked the team,” Hall added.
JV splits two games in double-header
The JV team split its doubleheader with Washington High School on March 27.
The Pirates started strong in the first game with singles by Ben Reoux and Fletch-
er Garrison. A couple walks and sacrifices carried Vashon to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first. Erik Powelson then took the mound for the first of his five shutout innings. Powelson finished with 12 strikeouts, no walks, and only two bloop singles. The final score was Vashon 16, Washington 0.
The second game was fraught with errors. The team couldn’t score as many runs as they gave up on errors and ended up on the losing side of a 12-2 score in five innings.
On April 1, the JV played a five-inning rain-shortened game against Chief Sealth at home. The game was expected to be canceled due to rain, but the visiting team was already on a ferry, so an exhibition game was played sans umpires.
Erik Powelson and Dustin Corthell were on the mound with Zach Drape catching. Vashon gave up four runs in the top of the first but came back with a couple of their own in the bottom of the inning. The offensive highlight was a nice 300-foot blast to the left centerfield gap by Fletcher Garrison to lead off the bottom of the fifth. The final score was Chief Sealth 8, Vashon 4.
