Huskies stun Baker with lopsided win
BAKER CITY - North Marion left Aurora around 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning and returned 18 hours later with a surprisingly one-sided win over No. 6 Baker in the first round of the OSAA State Championships.
No. 11 North Marion (15-13, 10-5) advances to the quarterfinals for the second consecutive year, while No. 6 Baker (15-11, 9-3) is eliminated from postseason contention.
After a scoreless first two innings by both clubs, the Huskies took charge of the game early on with four runs in the third inning. With two outs in the inning, Jordan Kendall drove in two on a single and Hunter Beachy followed it up with a two-run double. All four runs were unearned after a couple of errors by the Bulldogs in the inning.
The Huskies got back to work in the fifth inning, taking advantage of some sloppy pitching by Baker's normally-solid ace Taylor Gulick. The senior right-hander walked three and allowed a hit in the fifth, with all four runs coming in to score for North Marion. Gulick was replaced after just 4.1 innings which saw his pitch count reach triple digits. Nat Barrell, Colin Barrow, and Beachy added RBIs to their totals in a fifth inning which saw the Huskies put the game out of reach, taking an 8-0 lead.
The Bulldogs plated their only two runs of the game in the sixth inning thanks to a leadoff single followed by a two-run homer by Baker's relief pitcher, TJ Dunn.
Holding an 8-2 lead in to the top of the seventh, North Marion didn't settle there. Instead, the Huskies bats had their most productive offensive inning in terms of hits, adding three insurance runs on five base hits. Dylan Doubrava, Andy Schmitz, Shane McKillip, Barrell, and Kendall all notched base hits off of Dunn and the Bulldogs.
Josiah Ramon gloved the final out in center field to secure the complete game victory for Beachy (6-3, 4.82) and put the finishing touches on North Marion's upset win.
After recording a double-digit hitting total just once through the first half of the season, North Marion notched ten or more base hits for the eighth time in the last 12 games with an 11-hit outburst on Wednesday. The Huskies have also scored ten or more runs in three of their last five games.
Kendall and Beachy handled the heavy hitting in the contest, each batter collecting two base hits and three RBIs. Kendall improved his hitting streak to seven games, while Ramon and Doubrava extended theirs to six.
North Marion's 11 runs on Baker snapped a stretch of six times in the last seven games where Baker held an opponent to one run or less. The nine-run loss tied for the worst of the season for the Bulldogs.
The Huskies continued a stretch of winning postseason games comfortably with each of their last four postseason victories coming by at least six runs, all with double-digit runs scored.
North Marion advances to the quarterfinal round of the OSAA State Championships for the 16th time in school history where it will face No. 3 Gladstone in a rematch of two Tri-Valley Conference foes. First pitch is set for 5:00 p.m. from Gladstone High School. The winner of Friday's affair will advance to a semifinal game against the winner of No. 10 Scappoose and No. 15 Molalla.