The WJ baseball team clinched a state championship spot, beating Reservoir High School 10-0 in six innings on Tuesday, May 20.
The school named after the Hall of Fame pitcher is scheduled to play the Urbana Hawks tonight at 6 p.m. at Prince George’s Stadium for the chance to capture the first title in school history.
In the semifinal, WJ’s pitching was a huge key to victory. Senior Nolan Ross started on the bump and went all six innings for the Wildcats, allowing no runs and two hits while striking out 13 batters. There were moments in the game where he got himself into trouble with many runners on base, but he seemed to always find a way out of each tough situation.
WJ faced a challenge on the mound in Matthew Russell, the Reservoir pitcher who has committed to Division I baseball at Towson University. However, it didn’t take long for the Wildcats to figure out ways to score.
Reservoir yielded three walks to WJ to start the top of the second inning, and Ross put the Wildcats on the board with a bunt to first base. On the very next at-bat, senior center fielder Brady Chan hit an RBI groundout putting the Cats up 2-0 early.
“Our pitchers have been absolutely shoving; that’s what’s been carrying us all year. But then our offense really came alive, set the tone, once we get some runs up on the board, the other team’s kinda scared,” Ross said.
In the fifth inning, junior catcher Sam Weston hit an RBI single to make it 3-0. But the top of the sixth is where WJ began pouring on runs to add to Reservoir’s ever-increasing pool of despair.
Junior third baseman Ethan Pletter and senior first baseman Shaun Rudick both laid bunts down the first base line with runners on third, scoring a run each time.
Senior shortstop Connor McGee hit an RBI groundout to put the lead to six. Weston and senior second baseman Andreas Johnson hit back-to-back RBIs off line drives into left field.
“As a team, all we do is put the ball in play, all we do is drive in runs, and all we do is compete all the way through,” junior Jack Gilder said. “[The crowd] chirped at the pitcher, got in his head, and made it easy for us to play.”
But the game both started and ended with Ross, as he put the final nail in the coffin for Reservoir with a 2-RBI double to deep center field. Then, in the bottom of the sixth inning, Ross once again shut out Reservoir on the mound, ending the game after six innings by mercy rule.
“It feels great, I knew we had it all season, so to just come out here and perform just felt great,” Ross said.
WJ’s playoff run started in exciting fashion against the B-CC Barons in the region semifinals, in a home rivalry game on Saturday, May 10. The back-and-forth game saw WJ win in walk-off fashion off a wild pitch in the seventh inning, winning 6-5 and ousting their Bethesda rival from postseason competition.
Then, in the region finals, the Wildcats faced another familiar foe in Whitman. Whitman was 12-4 over the regular season and beat WJ in one of their games against each other, but WJ made quick work of the Vikings, shutting them out with a 10-0 win. They were led by senior second baseman Andreas Johnson, who scored five RBIs on three hits.
In the state quarterfinals matchup against Eleanor Roosevelt, the Cats again shut out the Raiders 10-0 in five innings, led by Brady Chan driving in four runs.
“We’ve battled every inning, every pitch, never taken anything off,” Weston said. “This team has worked harder than anyone, and three mercy games in a row, it just shows the dedication and hard work the team has.”
The team also set a series of baseball records in one season.Chan broke the school record for most stolen bases in a single season with 28. Ross also broke the county single-season strikeout record set in 2022, earning 82 strikeouts along the way for WJ. Ross, who finished the night throwing 106 pitches and is therefore ineligible to pitch tonight, finished his senior year on the mound with a 0.73 ERA in 47.1 innings pitched.
As a team, the season marks the Wildcats’ first-ever appearance in the state tournament, having never been able to make it past region competition. WJ went from never having seen a taste of state competition to making it to the Maryland 4A State Finals.
“It means everything,” Weston said. “To come out here and do something never done in school history, it means everything. Between how hard everyone plays, it means the world.”
After a long postseason run, it all comes down to one final game for the Wildcats. Fourth-seeded Urbana beat top-seeded Broadneck in a 13-inning game of attrition, to become the only team left standing in the way of WJ bringing home a state championship. Despite the game being the biggest game of each of the players’ lives, they are ready to take on the challenge.
“We’ve been practicing hard day in and day out, we’re in the dugout bringing the energy, we’re behind our guys. We’re rolling right now,” Johnson said. “We gotta keep our heads up and we’ve gotta stay strong, we can’t just be complacent, we gotta stay strong and practice every day.”
But win or lose tonight, one thing’s for sure: Walter Johnson would be proud.
