WJ baseball season comes to a close
Photo courtesy of @baseball_WJHS
The seniors celebrate their senior night against Poolesville to close out the regular season. The Wildcats won the game 5-2, pitching a no-hitter in the process.
May 21, 2019
The WJ baseball team came into this season with high hopes. After a disappointing loss to Whitman 19-16 to end last season, they strived to use past failures as a means for success.
“We had a rough start to the season. We got beat by 10 in each of our first two games and after 8 games we were 3-5. Since then we have really come together and played extremely well winning 8 of 9 and finished our league play 11-6,” coach Steve Sutherland said.
The midseason turnaround was attributed to two key players, senior captain pitcher/utility Noah Cerrud-Osman and sophomore pitcher/first baseman Dean Wandell. Cerrud-Osman batted .500 on the season with two home runs and 20 RBIs and for pitching he had a 3-1 record with a 1.75 ERA. Wandell, who will be leading the team for years to come, batted .375 with two home runs and 18 RBIs, with a 1-1 record and 3.41 ERA pitching.
The game on senior night against Poolesville was particularly notable as the team won the game 5-2, but more importantly the team no-hit Poolesville which is one of the greatest feats in baseball. Cerrud-Osman started the game, and after a rough start to the game giving up the only two runs in the first inning, he pitched five straight scoreless innings. Then in the seventh inning lockdown closer senior pitcher Ian Rees came in, shutting down Poolesville and completing the combined no-hitter.
Going into the playoffs, the team had high hopes. They started with an opening round matchup against Einstein, where they narrowly beat them 5-3, setting up a matchup against rival Whitman for the 3rd consecutive year in playoffs. The Wildcats fought hard in the game but ended up losing 5-1, ending their up and down season in the divisional semifinals.
“I feel like this season we were a really well bonded team and we played well together. We had our ups and downs but we finished the season 11-6 with momentum going into the playoffs. For upcoming years I feel that we have a lot potential but we need to work really hard in order to keep that momentum going,” sophomore Patrick Kemp said.
