While some students may travel for spring break, the Wildcat Varsity baseball team battled some of the best teams in Oakland County in the inaugural Oakland County Spring Break Baseball tournament.
Despite having three starters out for spring break, the Wildcats were able to advance to Saturday’s quaterfinal match against Madison Heights Bishop Foley on Saturday, April 10.
The Wildcats fell to Bishop Foley 4-2 in the quarterfinals.
The first runs of the game didn’t come until the bottom of the fourth inning, when Oxford went up 2-0 on a couple of unearned runs.
However, it wasn’t meant to be as Bishop Foley battled back, scoring all four of their runs in the top of the sixth inning off of three hits. Three of their runs were unearned.
Ryan Kitching had the lone RBI for the Wildcats, and senior Billy Kammerer pitched over five and two-third innings, giving up three hits, one earned run while striking out four in the loss.
The ability to hold a lead cost the Wildcats again on April 10 in their game against Rochester High School.
After building a 6-0 lead after the fifth inning, Rochester scored all six of their runs in the sixth inning to tie the game before time ran out.
Senior Mitch Stefanski and junior Keith Paslean got the offense started in the first with RBI hits, and sophomore Matt Economou, senior Eric Perry and Paslean added to the lead with successive hits in the fifth inning.
Paslean ended the day going 2-3 with three RBI’s while pitching five scoreless innings. He gave up no hits while striking out seven and walking four.
‘We played well enough to finish better than we did,? said Head Coach Jeff Willis. ‘The last three games we lost two and tied one and we were in a situation to win every single one of those three…we just didn’t execute on some of the fundamentals and didn’t get any timely hitting.?
Oxford opened up pool play for the tournament against Milford and Brandon on Monday, April 5.
In the first game against Milford, the Wildcats fell behind 7-0 after the top of the second inning, but scored 10 runs over the final two innings to defeat Milford 13-9 in five innings.
Economou smacked a three-run homer in the bottom half of the second inning to spark the rally.
The Wildcats then scored five runs in both the fourth and fifth innings to complete the comeback.
Contributing to the Wildcat offensive attack was sophomore Kyle Hartwick, who had two hits and three RBI’s and Kammerer, who had two singles, a double and a RBI in the game. Other standouts include Perry, who reached base four times, and senior Michael Pointe and junior Clayton Spiker, who each reached base three times.
Perry also picked up the win, pitching two scoreless innings, with one walk and one strikeout.
In the second game of the day, the Wildcats had a much easier time in their 8-3 victory over Brandon.
Oxford jumped out to a 5-0 lead after the first half inning, which was capped off by Hartwick’s two-run double.
All ten players in the lineup had at least one hit. Colin McGeen and junior Keith Paslean had a multi-hit game for Oxford; McGeen had two doubles, while Paslean had an RBI double and a single.
Kammerer was the winning pitcher. In his four innings of work, he gave up five hits, two earned runs while striking out five. Paslean then pitched three scoreless relief innings, allowing one hit while striking out seven and walking two.
In the second day of pool play on Wednesday, April 7, the Wildcats would play two close games against Stoney Creek and Anchor Bay.
In the third game of pool play, the Wildcats used a couple of late inning rallies to come from behind and defeat Stoney Creek High School 4-3.
Trailing 3-1 entering the six inning, Oxford got back-to-back run scoring singles from John Pesta and Perry to tie the game at three.
They took the lead in the seventh on back-to-back hits from Economou and Kammerer.
Spiker got the victory, pitching a scoreless fifth, sixth and seventh inning. He only allowed one hit while striking out three.
Perry, the starting pitcher, went the first four innings, giving up four hits and three runs, which were unearned, while striking out four and walking one.
The Wildcats finished pool play with a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Anchor Bay.
Junior Nick Balch and sophomore Matthew Zitny held Anchor Bay to only three hits and two earned runs on the afternoon, but it was Anchor Bay’s defense that stole the show.
They stifled the Wildcat offense by turning three double plays on the afternoon.
Pesta led the Wildcats with two hits on the afternoon, while Perry and Hartwick added doubles for Oxford.
Willis said that Kammerer was nominated to the all tournament team for his pitching and hitting efforts.
Oxford is currently 4-2-1 on the season.
‘I think we are headed in the right direction,? Willis said. ‘We got some good outings from our pitchers and some timely hitting in the three wins that we got. So I think the kids are feeling good,? he added.
Once they return from spring break, they have a double header against L’Anse Creuse North on Tuesday, April 13.