PORT ANGELES — At midseason, it looked like a longshot for the Port Angeles baseball team to make the postseason, much less qualify for state.
The team started the season 4-10-1,and 4-6 in Olympic League play.
Then, something clicked. And the team took off.
The Riders concluded regular-season play by winning five straight games, including four straight in league play, to leapfrog Sequim and Olympic in the standings to finish third in the Olympic League at 8-6. That winning streak included a complete-game no-hitter from Kody Williams over Kingston.
They had made the postseason, but the Roughriders were just getting started. They won three straight in the district tournament, crushing Eatonville 8-1, hanging on for a gritty 4-3 win over a good Steilacoom team that had the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the seventh and then walloping Fife 10-3 in terrible conditions in the semifinals to qualify for the state 2A tournament.
Suddenly, a team that was once 4-10-1 was playing for the District 3 championship. The Riders came up just short of a district championship, hanging tough with Bainbridge, ranked No. 6 in the state, until the fifth inning. The Spartans scored four runs in the fifth to finally pull away for a 9-4 win.
Now, the Riders prepare for state knowing they can hold their own with the toughest teams in the state despite not having the best won-loss record at the tournament.
Coach Zac Moore said a lot didn’t change from the beginning of the season to that remarkable nine-game stretch at the end of the year.
“We played good baseball all year. We just lost a lot of close games,” he said. “We’re the kind of team that is capable of beating anyone. I love our chances.”
In fact, the Riders lost five one-run games in the first half of the season. With any luck, Port Angeles could easily have 15 or 16 wins instead of 12. They won two one-run games down the stretch and their offense blew up, going from averaging fewer than three runs a game to nearly 10 runs a game. That number is inflated by one game in which the Riders scored 26 runs against a weak Bremerton team, but even excluding that victory, Port Angeles averaged 7.5 runs a game over that stretch.
“We’re finally starting to do what we’re capable of doing,” Moore said.
Moore said defense, lead by all-league shortstop Alex Angevine, is the team’s strength. Over the final nine games, the team made just eight errors, playing several games in gusty or wet conditions.
“It’s our ability to play defense. Almost all of our guys have the ability to play high-level defense,” he said.
Port Angeles also terrorized teams on the basepaths all season long with both raw speed and savvy baserunning. Any time Angevine got on base, he almost automatically ended up on second base with a steal or on a passed ball. The same went for pinch-runners such as Ian Smithson and Brandt Perry.
Moore said the Riders have an “untraditional, old-fashioned” offense right out of the 1960s. The team up and down the lineup has been deadly all year with its perfectly placed bunts.
Teams virtually never got the Roughriders’ lead runner out on a bunt. Countless bunts led to infield hits. Opponents knew the bunt was coming and simply had no defense for it.
“We practice it every day,” Moore said.
The Riders are also led by a good pitching staff, with Rylan Politika as one of the solid starters and Angevine pitching effectively out of the bullpen. Brayden Martin is the closer. The leader of the pitchers is lefty Williams, who pitched two great games in the postseason after his no-hitter.
“He was doing it all year,” Moore said. “He kept us in the game in all those one-run losses. He is a exceptional player.”
Port Angeles (12-11-1) got a decent seed at No. 11 thanks to its second-place finish in the District 3 tournament. The Roughriders begin play at Archer Park in Selah, not far from where the Port Angeles softball team is playing in its state tournament, against No. 6 Tumwater (18-6) at 2 p.m. Saturday. If the Riders win, they play No. 3 seed Selah (also the No. 1 team in the state in Ratings Percentage Index) immediately after that game.
