Vikes Fall To Ranked Tacoma In Super Regional

After making a run in the final 12 games of the season, the Big Bend Baseball program snuck into the final playoff spot in the Eastern Region. As the four seed, the Vikes had to travel to Tacoma and face off against the 3 seed from the Southern Region in a win or go home game. The Vikes are no stranger to win or go home games and handed the ball to the trusted Hunter Gibson hoping to advance to a best 2 of 3 versus the nationally ranked two seed in Tacoma. 

Taking on Umpqua Community College, Gibson did what he has done all year throwing his fourth complete game shutout of the season while only surrendering 5 hits, not walking a batter and striking out 6. With Gibson dominating, the Viking offense was able to feed off of his success and tag Umpqua's starter for 5 runs in 5th innings and putting it on their bullpen with a four spot in the 8th. Jak McLellan led the Vikings offense going 3-5 with 3 RBI's along with Heath Hachkowski collecting two hits and driving in 3 as well sending the Vikes to the Super Regional after a 9-0 victory. 

To start the best two of three series versus Tacoma, the Vikes handed the ball to freshman pitcher Hayden Schooler. Under the bright lights, Schooler tossed his best game of the season going 7 inings of 1 run baseball while striking out 10 and only walking on hitter before handing the ball off to James MacRae. Macrae came into a tie ball game, which ended up required extras. With spectacular pitching on both sides, it came down to who was going to make the first mistake. In the bottom of the 11th the Vikes made not one but two errors resulting in the Titans having the bases loaded and nobody out. Tacoma was able to execute with a sacrifice fly and the Vikes dropped game one by a score of 2-1 in 11 innings. 

Yet another win of go home for the Vikes and Brayden Weatherman toed the rubber. Another pitching dual lasted until the 7th inning as Weatherman threw 6 quality innings surrendering 2 runs, 1 earned and was forced to leave the ball game with elbow discomfort. Zach Geertsen came in and surrendered two runs over his inning of work, followed by Brett Nemechek who threw the final inning giving up a solo home run. With pitching hanging in, the Viking offense could not get anything going as the were only able to scratch across one run on 3 hits ending their season after the 5-1 loss.