The Jackson baseball team wrapped up the regular season with a high-scoring series split with Edmonds-Woodway.
The Timberwolves won the opener 10-9 on April 28 but the Warriors took the rematch 10-8 on April 29 to wrap up the Western Conference South Division regular season. The Wolfpack already had clinched the division’s No. 2 berth to the district playoffs.
Jackson hosts Marysville-Pilchuck at 1 p.m., Saturday May 3 in a first-round game.
“We accomplished what we wanted to do,” Jackson coach Kirk Nicholson said. “We are going to the playoffs with the first game at home.
“We played hard the whole year. My kids have done a great job. We’re happy with where we’re at.”
The Jackson offense appears to be peaking at the right time as the Wolfpack has scored 31 runs in its last three games. Jackson senior outfield Danny Oh is hitting about .545, Nicholson noted.
“He’s had a huge year,” he said. “We’ve actually come down the stretch hitting really well.”
In the first game against Edmonds-Woodway, senior shortstop Brandon Wang hit a pair of home runs and drove in four RBI.
Edmonds-Woodway senior Tyler Lange returned the favor in the second game with two home runs and three RBI.
“It was a great game,” Nicholson said. “We hit the ball hard. They had a couple more hits than we did.”
After losing to Jackson the day before, Edmonds-Woodway needed a victory to advance to the district playoffs. The win meant that the Warriors, Kamiak and Shorewood finished in a three-way tie with 9-7 league records. Edmonds-Woodway and Shorewood, however, advanced to the playoff because they had the better head-to-head record among the three teams.
As of Tuesday night, Nicholson had yet to decide on whether he would throw junior Jordan Kellington or sophomore Mike Wishko against the Tomahawks.
“We have a young pitching staff,” Nicholson said. “They’ve done a great job of challenging the hitters and getting after them. We’ll find out in the playoffs how we’re doing.”
WANG LIFTS WOLFPACK TO WIN: Brandon Wang’s “day in the sun,” as Jackson baseball coach Kirk Nicholson called it, gave the Timberwolves a come-from-behind 10-9 Wesco South victory and kept the Edmonds-Woodway Warriors from clinching a 4A District 1 tournament berth.
Wang was 3-for-5 with two home runs and four RBI.
“It was exciting. Back-and-forth the whole way,” Nicholson said.
The Warriors took a 9-8 lead in the seventh inning when Kyle Long followed Trevor Takara’s double with an RBI single that scored Takara from second.
That set up Wang’s heroics.
The senior shortstop, who had homered in the previous inning, hit a two-run walkoff home run with two outs in the seventh giving Jackson its 11th victory of the season.
“It was pretty cool to see this happen for him. He’s one of those guys that work hard the entire time and does everything for the team that he can do,” Nicholson said of Wang.
Danny Oh, who scored on Wang’s home run, finished 3-for-4 with three runs scored. Oh pitched the seventh inning to earn the victory.
Kramer Scott was 3-for-4 with a double and an RBI for the Warriors.
Isaac Kim and Greg Cranson also homered for Jackson
JACKSON CLINCHES PLAYOFF BERTH: Two years removed from winning a 4A state title, the Timberwolves clinched a postseason berth with a 13-3 six-inning Wesco South victory over the Shorewood Thunderbirds on April 25 at Jackson High School.
Thanks to the inconsistent weather the Timberwolves were playing in their fourth game of the week, a rarity in high school baseball. That left the Timberwolves thin on pitching and allowed an opportunity for a couple of freshmen to make their varsity debuts.
Freshman Cameron Bartok pitched 1 2/3 innings and fellow freshman Kyle Olson relieved him, pitching 3 1/3 innings and earning his first varsity victory. Olson, normally a backup catcher who had caught three junior varsity games, was making his second pitching appearance of the week.
“He did great. He looked like he belonged there,” Jackson head coach Kirk Nicholson said.
Olson’s victory was thanks in part to a good day for the Jackson offense.
Danny Oh (3-for-4), Mike Wishko (3-for-4) and Gabe Rochon (3-for-3) each had three hits for the Timberwolves. Wishko and Rochon accounted for seven of the Timberwolves’ 13 runs.
Wishko, a sophomore, had a double and two RBI and Rochon, a first baseman, had a double and five RBI.
“We put pressure on them offensively, we had a hot bat today. We scored a lot of runs and we made some plays today,” Nicholson said of his offense.
Shorewood had defeated Jackson on Wednesday in an eight-inning game that featured six home runs.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
