Final Blog - Colts on to state.

Thurston 4 Sheldon 3

What a game!  Watty taking a liner to the noggin off of Ryan Land's bat to start the game.  And Watty ripping a bottom of the 7th inning double to start the Colt come from being rally.  Great crowd, great pitching, great weather.  Couldn't have asked for more.

That makes it three finals appearances for Thurston in the last five years.  2008 runner-up, 2009 State Champions and now the 2012 trip.  Add in a 2010 Thurston quarterfinals appearance and Coach Phil Dube can say that Thurston has one of the best  baseball programs in the state.

Anyone remember the starting players of the 2009 title team?  Urness (Danny), Myrmo, Hoover (Kyle), Spencer, Chapman, Pearson, Reed, Galbreath, Ryan and Hesse.  Seven of these starters played in the 2008 championship  game!

#2 RPI Thurston enters the championship game at 26-4 and plays #22 Oregon City, which is 19-11.  In the last five games the Pioneers have beaten #4 Jesuit (regular season) , #12 Central Catholic, #34 McNary, #4 Jesuit again and #1 Roseburg.  How's that for getting on a roll at the right time?

RPI haters were probably champing at the bit for a Sheldon versus Oregon City match up.  Sheldon was #11 in the RPI, so it would have been an 11 versus 22 for the title.  I would have said, "That's baseball for you."

Sheldon left out again...

One last story. Sheldon's bottom of the 7th inning loss last night wasn't as heartbreaking as their 8-7 8 inning loss to Lakeridge in the semi's in 2001.   The Irish were playing at Lakeridge.  My future stepson, soph Alex Brink, was at shortstop and my son, Andrew Haliski, was on the bench.  Tim Brown was our star first baseman/catcher and the lefty had gotten us through a lot of scrapes as a pitcher, too. Tim's Dad, Chester, was in the Midwest at a 'must-do' training for his job.  I was calling OregonLive after each inning so they could post the score on the web.  Chester was following the game via computer somewhere in Illinois.

Managing cell phone battery life was much more of a challenge in those days, and my cell phone died with Sheldon up by one after the top of the 7th.  I was furiously begging people to borrow a phone, but on this  gorgeous and hopefully glorious day, everyone was calling their family and friends with play by play of the last inning.

 Lakeridge gets up for their last at bats.  Tim Brown is on the mound. First batter - out. Second batter - Out.  Then, Strike one.  Then, Strike two to the UCLA bound Oregon City catcher.  No balls, two strikes.  Then -  KAPOW.  Tie ball game.  Sheldon loses in eight.  I was still without a cell phone and couldn't call OregonLive.  OregonLive waited for awhile and eventually assumed Sheldon won in 7 innings and posted the score as final. Chester went happy crazy in Illinois. I  drove back to Eugene where I got on my computer and saw that OregonLive still had Sheldon as the winner.

Chester comes up to me at the baseball awards meeting a few nights later and tells me he almost had a heart attack because when he called his family full of joy about going to the finals, his family told him the harrowing truth.  I didn't tell Chester about my phone battery....

Which leads me to one of my favorite quotes.  Olympian Donna de Varona:

The values learned on the playing field – how to set goals, endure, take criticism and risks, become team players, use our beliefs, stay healthy, and deal with stress – prepare us for life

Tim went on to several  years of minor league ball and is now a proud papa.  Chester survived and got to see Tim's younger brother and sisters have great athletic careers.

Final Farewells and Welcome Back Next Year

I've been recapping seniors and returnees with significant playing time as teams have exited the playoffs.  So here's the last few teams.  I'll include Thurston as they have just one more game, win or lose.

*Asterisks indicate returning 2012 all league players.

North Eugene

The Highlander pitching staff gets clobbered with the graduation of  Moore and Woods.  Three freshmen are on the list of returning players with significant playing time. 

Seniors
Dillon Hudson
Joe Lindley
Ryan Delaney
Toby Woods
Andrew Moore

Returning*
Kevin Haase
*Dane Stapley
Quinn Wallace
Tommy Ahlstrom
Jake Owens

Sheldon

The Irish outfield takes a hit, and Torres will be tough to replace at second.  But who's gonna have the best pitching staff next year?  I have a lot of players listed as returning with significant playing time.  That's due to a combination of things; short term injuries, season ending operation, other stuff....

Seniors
Sean Bellotti
Mike Skaja
Cameron Herr
Ryan Land
Alex Torres
Kaleb Stubbs

Returning*
Mitch Lewis
* Mike Ralston
Cooper Stiles
Gaje McDaniel
Connor Strahm
Mitch Herbert
Tony Tokalty
David Bellamy
Ivan Faulhaber
Taylor Allie
Brett Nielsen
Dylan Lewis

Thurston

The Colts lose a ton of experienced guys.  There's  nothing like good pitchers having a great catcher, and Thurston's pitching staff will miss Goddard.   Did I say the Irish are losing a lot in the outfield?  How about Urness, Hoover and Drake for the Colts?  Ouch!  Did I ask in the Sheldon section, "Who's gonna have the best pitching staff next year?"  Let's see Watson, Clift, Hutchinson, Quarterley verus Nielsen, Ralston and Alie...  I'm already dreaming about next  year's pitching matchups.

Seniors
Joey Urness
Kyler Ridge
Stefan Drake
Jarren Goddard
Hunter Combs
Aaron Hoover

Returning*
Tyler Hutchinson
* Kyle Watson
J.T. Kopcenski
Aaron Clift
Shane Quarterley

If I missed anyone that should be included on this post or the last couple of  'Farewell to..." posts, email me at mwlnow@yahoo.com.

Quick 2012 reflection

My final pre-hybrid league prediction had Thurston #1, just ahead of Sheldon.  The Colts were the best in hybrid, by a game over Sheldon.  And after last night's Colt's one run win over the Irish, I guess I hit that one on the head.  It was great to see two teams - South Eugene and Willamette take some big steps forward this year.  I don't think either team's 2012 success was a flash in the pan.  Both teams are creeping up on Thurston, Sheldon, North Eugene and Churchill for quality programs.  That developmnet is fantastic for MWL baseball.    Marist, Springield and Marshfield were all extremely young this year.  It showed early, but they all improved a lot as the season progressed.  Unfortuneately for the Pirates, they hit they academic wall late in the season and decimated thier team.  Hopefully, the young Bucs will learn their lesson.  Overall, the MWL had a great year in baseball and next year has the same potential.

Photos

I posted about ten games that I hadn't posted earlier.  So if you don't have any photos of your kid, you may want to browse through them.  New additions go back to early April and many of them are on sunny days.  The photos galleries will eventually go away as I won't be renewing the SmugMug account.  Photo page

MWL Players in College

We're up to 28 former MWL players on college rosters with the addition of Marshfield's Adam Reed at Univeristy of Pittsburgh.  If you know of anyone else, please let me know.  Current College List.

The new MWL site.

The official league managed site should be up in time for fall sports.  I'll be dropping my site to make way for the league site.  That's going to free up a lot of time for me.  I hope to work more directly with students either in the Bethel school district where my wife works, or the North Eugene/River Road area where I live.  I've already been working with Corey Nicholsen at North on their athletic department site.  The site doesn't have much pizzaz yet, but we've got a ton of baseball info on it.  It's a good model for the type of info a school's athletic department can put on a website.  North Eugene Baseball. 

Good Luck Thurston in the State Championship Game.