Wilsonville’s baseball team has come a long way in the past month.
When the Wildcats opened Northwest Oregon Conference play in early April with back-to-back losses to La Salle Prep, their losing streak reached six games and they were looking for answers.
A month later, they have won 12 of 13 and are in position to win their first conference title since 2011.
No. 7 Wilsonville overtook Putnam for first place last week by outscoring the Kingsmen 32-6 in a three-game sweep. The Wildcats (15-8, 12-3) -- who lead Putnam (15-8, 10-5) and La Salle Prep (10-9, 9-3) – have three conference games remaining, all next week against Scappoose (4-16, 3-9).
“We have learned a lot about how to compete at this level,” Wildcats coach Bryn Card said. “We are only returning four seniors and a total of three starters from last year so we are young, and the young kids had to learn to compete every inning, and not just rely on talent to carry them through games, like they were able to do prior to varsity.
“So our learning curve was a large one, but the team has risen to the challenge and are playing very good baseball right now.”
Junior Andrew Classen capped the sweep of Putnam by throwing a no-hitter in a 9-0 win Friday. Classen struck out five, walked two and hit a batter.
He followed an outstanding pitching performance by senior Nolan Thebiay in Wednesday’s 14-0 win over the Kingsmen. Thebiay got the complete-game shutout, scattering six hits, striking out 10 and walking two.
The Wildcats had 17 hits in Wednesday’s game. They hit .417 in the three-game series, led by senior Trevor Antonson, who hit two doubles, two home runs and nine RBIs. One of his homers was a grand slam.
Antonson, Thebiay, junior Keegan Shivers, junior Cole Kleckner and freshman Cole Hubka each had five hits in the series. Kleckner drove in five runs and Thebiay, Hubka and senior Cade Edmondson had three RBIs each.
jerryu@osaa.org
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