PORT ANGELES — Wilder Baseball’s senior team remained unbeaten in the 16th annual Dick Brown Memorial Firecracker Classic by beating Olympia’s Sandberg 5-2 at Civic Field.
Meanwhile, the Wilder junior team opened the tournament with losses to Sandberg, Wilder Senior and Oak Harbor.
Wilder Senior plated two runs in the top of the first inning Friday against Sandberg, the first coming when Dusty Bates, who was moved to the leadoff spot in the batting order, walked and then came around to score.
But Sandberg pitcher Matt Uznanski kept Wilder down thereafter and carried a no-hitter into the fifth inning.
Sanberg scored once off Wilder’s Travis Paynter in the first and added another in the fourth to tie the score at 2-2.
With two outs in the bottom of the fifth, Uznanski’s no-hit bid was broken up with two outs on a single by Wilder’s Ryan Mudd.
Zach Withrow then reached on an error and Tanner Rhodefer battled Uznanski for seven pitches before earning a walk to load the bases for Bates, who singled home Mudd and Withrow to make it 4-2.
Wilder tacked on one more run in the sixth inning.
Paynter’s outing lasted 5 2/3 innings, striking out one and allowing two hits and one earned run while walking five batters.
“It wasn’t Travis’ best game, by any means,” Wilder coach Mike Politika said. “He didn’t have his command, he worked deep into a lot of counts.
“But he competed. He made the pitch when he had to make the pitch.
“He just battled.”
Mudd came in and earned the save, retiring all four batters he faced in 1 1/3 inning of work.
Wilder finished with five hits, one each from Bates, Mudd, Paynter, Brett Wright and Eathen Boyer.
After falling 6-5 to Sandberg and 5-1 to Wilder Senior, Wilder’s junior team had showdown with Oak Harbor, which beat Wilder Junior 1-0 in the Anacortes Wood Bat Tournament last weekend.
Oak Harbor won again, this time by a 10-4 score.
Oak Harbor then beat Sandberg 9-4 on Saturday to earn a spot in the Firecracker Classic championship game today at 4 p.m. at Civic Field.
Preceding that game, the third-place and fourth-place teams in pool play will meet at 1 p.m.
