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No shame in their game
Baseball team returns home with a third-place NWAACC trophy after coming up two games short of championship
The Advocate
Head coach Bryan Donohue had assembled his troops to return home with the school’s fourth NWAACC championship trophy. But the baseball team had to settle for third place as they returned home Monday on I-5 from Longview.
The Saints captured a third-place trophy for the third time since Donohue took over the program four years ago. Just a year ago, the team missed the playoffs for the first time in 16 years. Donohue said this tournament had a different feel to it.
“It felt like we got more than third,” he said. “The last two times I was there we lost on Sunday. Breaking over that Sunday hump is tough to do.”
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For the first time since 2005, when Donohue was playing for the Saints, the team made it as far as Championship Monday. He said after missing Monday in his first two playoffs as a coach, it was nice to be in a contender position.
This was just four days after getting smacked by the number one-ranked Bellevue Bulldogs 10-2 in round one action last Thursday (May 26). The Bulldogs knocked the seams off the ball, piling up 20 hits. The Saints then made it a priority to battle their way back for a championship run.
They sure came close.
Thankfully for the double elimination format, the Saints were able to catch a second wind. They rallied to win three games in a row, which put them in a position to make a real run for the money. They sent three teams packing for home.
On Friday, the Saints bounced back with a 7-4 victory over the Yakima Valley Yaks (22-6, 32-12). Then on Saturday, the Saints defeated the Columbia Basin Hawks (22-6, 33-16). In Sunday’s game, the Saints were led on the mound by Matt Pechmann, who threw a complete game and fanned 11 batters in a 2-1 nail-biter over Southern Region rival Lane (19-11, 26-20).
Donohue said the opening game loss was tough. “That was the first time I’ve lost my first game (in the playoffs) as a coach,” Donohue said. “First loss really hurts. But once you get that first win, you’re right back in it. It’s not like this giant hill to climb.”
Sophomore left-fielder Matt Nylen said, “We battled back from a tough first loss, that’s for sure,” he said. “We tried our best to come back in the losers bracket. It’s nice knowing our team wouldn’t give up.”
That run came to an end Monday at Story Field in a thriller against the hometown Lower Columbia Red Devils, where the Saints fell 7-3.
“It was a good run,” Donohue said.
Sophomore Jeff Ames, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound flame-thrower, took to the hill for the Red Devils for the third day in a row. His velocity was way down — he is usually in the low-to-mid 90mph range — but he still found a way to be effective and tossed a lethal changeup into his arsenal to keep the Saints second-guessing.
“His velocity was down against us,” Donohue said. “We were out in front of him, to be honest. He was throwing 95 (mph) the night before out of the bullpen.”
Just last summer, Ames was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the 30th round (950th overall). He was considered one of the best pitchers in the Northwest.
Ames proved dominant at times. He tossed six strong innings, scattering five hits, giving up two runs and struck out five. Freshman Aaron Huson took over in the seventh and pitched the final three innings for the Red Devils.
Freshman Isaac Henslee was on the hill for the Saints, and he was on cruise control until he hit a bump in the road in the bottom half of the fourth. The Red Devils bats came to life.
With the game tied 1-1, the Red Devils calmed down, they got into a rhythm and lit up Henslee for six runs before he handed the ball over to freshman Brian Capps with one out, trailing 7-1. Capps finished the contest with a near-perfect performance, only giving up one hit. But the damage had been done.
“Ran into one bad inning,” Donohue said of the bottom of the fourth troubles.
“They (the Red Devils) literally found every hole. It wasn’t like they were hitting the ball out of the house or hitting hard liners into the gap.
“Up until that point,” Donohue added, “(the Red Devils) were playing with nerves. They had made two errors earlier in the game.” Those two errors came in the top of the third inning, which is when the Saints scored their first run on an RBI single off the bat of freshman second baseman Trevor Cass.
Asked how he maintained a strong sense of focus when he received the ball in the fourth, Capps said he felt he had no other choice and looked at the situation as any other opportunity.
“I felt very comfortable out there,” he said. “We’ve been through some tough situations where you just have to bear down and leave everything you have on the field.” Capps did just that. But it was a little too late at the point in the game.
Donohue said Capps made a “statement” and deserved a lot of credit for another strong outing in bullpen duty. “I told him, ‘You have to give us a chance.’ He kept us in the game. All of a sudden our defense was putting up zeros.”
The Saints inched their way closer by adding runs in the sixth and seventh.
Sophomore first baseman Jeremy Burright launched his second homerun of the season deep over the left field fence in the top of the sixth. He thought that might be a turning point in the game since they still had four innings to pour on some runs.
“I felt like it gave as a quick shot of hope,” Burright said of his homerun. “I know we truly believed we had a chance, and that got us going a little bit. Nobody should ever count us out. We just caught some unlucky breaks and fell short.”
The Saints (22-8, 29-13-1) finished the tournament in third place after ending the regular season as Southern Region champions. Donohue was named the Southern Region Coach of the Year, while freshman shortstop Alex Foulan was named the Southern Region Player of the Year.
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