PORT ANGELES — Wilder Baseball’s bid for a World Series berth couldn’t have started much better Wednesday night.
The area 16-18-year-old all-star squad began the Senior Babe Ruth Pacific Northwest Regional Tournament with a 13-0 drubbing of the Missoula (Mont.) Pioneers at Civic Field.
Riding a strong performance from Easton Napiontek on the mound, Wilder (13-9 overall) moved to 1-0 in pool play and set up a critical game against Portland Baseball tonight at 7 p.m.
“It was a good start to tournament,” Wilder head coach Rob Merritt said. “It doesn’t matter at this point what it looks like, you just gotta win.”
Napiontek, a 6-foot-7 right-hander, tossed six innings of shutout baseball, racking up 10 strikeouts while allowing just two hits and one walk.
Meanwhile, the Wilder bats took advantage of six walks and six errors from the Pioneers to score 13 runs on just five hits.
“[Napiontek] hadn’t thrown in about 10 days, and he looked very good, very sharp,” Merritt said. “He was getting his curveball over, setting up his fastball.”
Cody Sullivan led the Wilder bats with a 3-for-5 performance that included one run scored and an RBI.
Teammate Isaac Yamamoto was 1-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI.
Cole Uvila added a critical three-RBI single on a bases loaded hit-and-run in the fifth inning that sparked a four-run frame and put Wilder comfortably ahead.
“The guy throwing against us was throwing a bunch of sliders all night long,” Merritt said. “You don’t see that a lot.”
Merritt remained tight lipped about who he planned to send to the hill tonight against Portland Baseball.
Portland, the defending regional champions, all but assured itself a spot in Sunday’s finals with a pair of double-digit wins on Wednesday.
Wilder 13, Missoula (Mont.) 0
Wilder 0 0 1 2 4 0 6 — 13 5 1
Missoula 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0 3 6
WP- Napiontek (4-2); LP- Eztzel
Pitching Statistics
Wilder: Napiontek 6IP, 2H, BB, 10K.
Missoula: Eztzel 4.1IP.
Hitting Statistics
Wilder: Sullivan 3-5 (R, RBI); Yamamoto 1-3 (2R, RBI); Uvila 1-2 (3RBI, R).
