Wahluke baseball takes first win

MATTAWA — The rebuilding Wahluke High School baseball program, which is in its third year of a JV schedule, has notched one win this year over the Othello C team.

Leading players who helped with the first two years of the rebuild opted not to play this year. So, in some ways, the Warriors are rebuilding again.

At Othello, sophomore pitcher Sergio Pineda and Carlos Delgado pitched a combined seven hitless innings to help lead the way. Eduardo Ponce and Aaron Martinez led the charge from the plate, collecting four extra-base hits. Ponce singled in the third inning and doubled in the first, fifth and seventh innings.

Also key to victory was the fact that Wahluke didn’t commit any fielding errors the entire game.

“This is definitely a first since I’ve been at WHS,” Coach Dan Oppelt said.

Question marks still remain. Both of the catchers and four pitchers from last year did not turn out this year.

“It seems that we are constantly rebuilding every year,” Oppelt said. “This year is critical for us because we will begin playing at the varsity level next year.”

In two games played at Wahluke on Tuesday of last week, Granger swamped the Warriors 19-7 in the first game and edged them, 8-5, in the second.

It hurt that No. 1 pitcher Sergio Pineda was unavailable. He was injured slightly against Othello the previous week.

Also hurting the Warriors was the absence of their catchers of the last two years. In fact, they top player from those years, Felix Jimenez did not turn out this year.

“We had three kids pitch for the first time yesterday for the first time,” Oppelt said.

The Warriors faced off against Highland on Friday afternoon, semi-splitting a double header. The Warriors dropped the first game 11-0 in five innings, suffering 14 strikeouts.

“This was the first game where we really faced someone who threw pretty hard in addition to having good control,” Oppelt said.

In the nightcap, the Warriors and Scotties played to a 3-3 tie. The Warriors got a great pitching effort from sophomore Carlos Delgado.

Highland managed just two hits off of Delgado, who allowed one earned run, walked one batter and struck out five during his five innings of work.

“Carlos had good command of his pitches, and it helped out having Daniel Tapia back behind the plate,” Oppelt said.

Tapia has been in driver’s edcation, and this was his first game of the year. In the bottom of the second, Warriors grabbed the early lead, 2-0.

The Warriors began with a double by Eduardo Ponce. A stolen base then moved Ponce from second to third. Tapia singled, scoring Ponce.

The Warriors scored one more run when Herrera scored on a passed ball. Highland scored two in the third and one in the fourth to tie the score.

Neither team scored in the fifth inning, and the game was called due to darkness.