Shorewood baseball rolls to state berth past Edmonds-Woodway

Published 8:37 pm Saturday, May 16, 2026

EVERETT — By the time Danny Morgan stepped to the plate with the bases loaded at Everett Memorial Stadium on Saturday, he’d had plenty of time to think about what to do.

Senior Lukas Wanke worked a full-count walk with the bases loaded to give Shorewood baseball a 2-0 lead over Edmonds-Woodway in a District 1 3A winner-to-state consolation game, but with the rain picking up into a downpour with Morgan on deck, the game went into a rain delay.

With the game paused for over 40 minutes, Shorewood passed the time playing hacky-sack and building cup towers to stay loose both physically and mentally. In Morgan’s eyes, there was no need to overthink anything.

“My thing with baseball is just to stay loose,” Morgan said. “With all these guys on this team, I tell them, ‘Just stay loose and be free,’ because that’s how I find success, and I think how a lot of people can find success. It’s just not being too tense. It’s like playing hacky-sack, making jokes, building (cup) towers. It’s what helped me, at least, to stay present.”

Morgan immediately fell behind 0-2 in the count upon the return to play, but his mind remained clear. With two outs and no room for error, the junior took two balls to even the count before fouling the fifth pitch. Hunting for a hittable pitch, Morgan connected on the sixth and laced an RBI single to left field, extending the lead to 3-0 and re-igniting the rally with the bases loaded.

Senior Finn Bachler followed that up with a two-run single, and Morgan scored on a first-and-third double steal that resulted in Bachler getting caught in a pickle to end the frame, Shorewood carried a 6-0 lead into the bottom of the second.

With a few more runs down the stretch and shutdown pitching from Morgan and sophomore Cohen Srour, the No. 4 seed Stormrays (18-5) walked away with a 9-1 win against the No. 3 seed Warriors (17-7) to punch their ticket to state for the third time in four years.

“I feel like we’ve had a bunch of dudes the past three years that I’ve been here,” Morgan said. “But this year, we all got each other’s back. We trust in every single one of them. The next guy behind me, they’re going to get me. They’re going to pick me up, even if I strike out.”

Morgan held Edmonds-Woodway to just two hits across four innings, and he went 1-for-2 at the plate with two walks, one RBI and one run scored. Bachler drove two runs in, and Srour tossed three hitless innings in relief with two strikeouts and two walks.

After beating the Warriors 2-0 on April 29 to tie them atop the Wesco South 3A/2A standings, Shorewood fell 3-1 in the rematch on May 1 to fall just short of the league title. The Stormrays proceeded to lose 5-2 to Monroe in the district quarterfinals on May 9 and beat Marysville-Getchell 9-5 in a loser-out consolation game on May 12 to set up a rubber-match with Edmonds-Woodway on Saturday.

“We changed up practice a little bit (to) get some more hitting,” Andrews said. “We saw nine runs today, that’s the type of stuff like, if we can put up that kind of energy in the first couple innings, our pitching is going to hold them to one or two most games, so that’s what we got going for the last few games that have really helped us.”

Junior Cameron Croft went 1-for-1 with the lone RBI for the Warriors, and senior Dre Simonsen had the only other hit.

Saturday marks another disappointing end for Edmonds-Woodway after a strong regular season. After winning Wesco South 3A/2A for the fourth straight year, the Warriors reached the District 1 3A semifinals, where they fell 3-2 to Snohomish on Thursday to fall into the consolation bracket. With Saturday’s loss, the program will miss out on the state tournament for the second year in a row after placing third in 2024.

“We felt really good coming in… We just didn’t recover from it, I guess,” Edmonds-Woodway coach Dan Somoza said. “And Shorewood played a great game, but very proud of our team. Only one team can win it in state, and it’s a tough journey. The baseball gods weren’t with us these last two games, so it’s all good. I’m very proud of our seniors and what they accomplished.”

The Stormrays loaded the bases with three straight singles to start off the second, and senior Adam Jaramillo got hit by a pitch on an 0-2 count to bring in a run. Two batters later, Wanke worked a walk on a full count to bring in another run while keeping the bases loaded.

“When I go up to the plate, I’m trying to attack the strikes,” Wanke said. “I feel like that’s super important when having an approach at the plate, is not getting too aggressive and start swinging at balls, because those pitches you don’t want to hit. And that’s what happened. He got me 0-2, and I saw balls after that.”

Wanke spent his first three years at Edmonds-Woodway, but transferred to Shorewood in the fall for football with the Warriors’ program in flux following a coaching change. While Wanke said there’s no bad blood between him and his former teammates, he was happy to pick up two out of three en route to a state tournament trip.

After the rain delay, the Stormrays picked up where they left off to complete the rally at 6-0, and while Edmonds-Woodway answered back by getting runners to second and third following back-to-back full-count walks to lead off the bottom of the second, a base-running error following a William Alseth flyout led to an inning-ending pickoff on the bases.

Simonsen picked up the Warriors’ first hit in the bottom of the fourth to put two runners on after senior Trevelyan Podawiltz was hit by a pitch, and senior Erik Alsdorf worked a walk to load the bases with one out. Croft reached on an infield single to keep the bases loaded as Podawiltz scored to cut it to 6-1, but Morgan induced a groundout on the next at-bat to prevent any more damage.

“It means a lot,” said Morgan, who showed extra emotion leaving the mound. “Especially playing against a team where every year that I’ve been here, we’ve always battled with them. Getting that first out and getting the second one, it means a lot, especially when I’m working my butt off for every out.”

Shorewood loaded the bases again in the fifth on walks from Morgan and sophomore Nathan Grieger as well as a bloop single from Bachler, where he snapped his aluminum bat. Morgan scored on a wild pitch to make it 7-1, senior Cameron Falk hit a sacrifice lineout to right field and senior Calan Sporn laid down a sacrifice bunt to score Grieger and extend it to 9-1.

In addition to building reps in all hitting situations, the Stormrays expect to enter the state tournament with some fresher arms on the mound stepping in for a couple injured pitchers. After early exits in the last two state trips, Shorewood feels like it has the depth to go further this time.

“I think our lineup’s kind of been underperforming a lot of the year,” Andrews said. “And that’s the kind of explosion that I kind of expected for most of the year, so I mean, I see a lot of guys getting hot at the right time, so it’s just sticking to approach and staying confident.

“I think any game we’re in, we’re going to have a shot.”