Jackson notches key baseball win
Published 11:09 pm Tuesday, April 20, 2010
MILL CREEK — At the start of last week, Jackson was riding high in the Western Conference South baseball standings with a 7-1 league mark and sole possession of first place.
Three losses in four days later, the Timberwolves were scrambling to get back on track.
On Tuesday, Jackson took a big step in that direction with a convincing and much-needed 8-3 victory over Wesco South rival Mountlake Terrace on a cold and soggy day for baseball at Jackson High School.
The T-wolves shrugged off early deficits of 2-0 and 3-1, and went on top to stay with a five-run second inning. That made the score 6-3, and Jackson tacked on two more runs in the third inning.
The outcome brought a smile to the face of Jackson coach Kirk Nicholson, who saw his team lose 14-1 and 12-6 to Kamiak on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, and then suffer a heartbreaking 1-0 loss to Mountlake Terrace on Friday.
“Kind of the measure of a team is how you react when you’re down and out,” Nicholson said. “We lost three straight last week, but we bounced back (Tuesday). We played hard and I think we did our job.”
Four days after being shut out by Mountlake Terrace, the T-wolves erupted for eight runs on 12 hits while taking advantage of six walks and five Hawks errors. Every player in the Jackson lineup but one reached base twice, and all but two of the nine players scored.
Center fielder Sam Brown was the offensive star, going 3-for-3 with a double and reaching base a fourth time with a walk, while scoring once and adding three RBI. But his teammates provided plenty of backing, including shortstop Mike Wishko, who was 3-for-4 with two runs scored and an RBI triple.
The big inning for the T-wolves was the second, when they sent 10 hitters to the plate and scored five runs. Brown and catcher Anthony Flatt both had two-run singles in the inning, and third baseman Cole Plummer drove in the inning’s fifth run with another single.
The beneficiary of all that offense was Jackson starting pitcher Mason Haugen. He struggled in the first inning, giving up two runs on one hit and three walks, and then yielded another run in the second inning.
“The first inning I felt terrible,” Haugen said. “I just didn’t feel comfortable out there and I threw terrible. But I finally started getting comfortable and got in a groove.”
What made the difference, Haugen said, was a change in tempo. He started taking less time between pitches and he even went with a quicker windup.
The change, he said, “kind of got me in a rhythm.” At the outset, “I just didn’t feel like I had my game for some reason. But then, like I said, I found my rhythm and I felt a lot better.”
In the third, fourth, fifth and sixth innings, Haugen did not give up a hit or a run. The Hawks had just two base runners in those innings with a walk and a hit batter.
Haugen nearly managed a complete game, but after giving up a one-out infield single in the seventh Nicholson made a pitching change. Haugen had thrown 113 pitches, so Wishko came in to finish and he did by retiring two of the three hitters he faced.
Last week’s three losses have tightened the Wesco South race, and Jackson has another tough test today when it faces Edmonds-Woodway.
“None of them are easy at this time of the year,” Nicholson said. “But I like where we’re at and what we’re doing, and hopefully things work out for us.”
Mountlake Terrrace starting pitcher Andrew Woeck reached base twice (walk, hit-by-pitch) and scored twice, while catcher Keegan Volpone had an RBI triple for the Hawks.
At Jackson H.S.
M. Terrace2100000—335
Jackson152000x—8121
Woeck, Sheets (2), Wilkening (5) and Volpone; Haugen, Wishko (7) and Flatt. WP_Haugen. LP_Woeck. 2B_Brown (J). 3B_Volpone (MT), Wishko (J). Records_Mountlake Terrace 8-4 league, 9-5 overall. Jackson 8-4, 10-4.
