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W.F. West’s hopes of a dream 2025 season came down to one inning against Othello in the 2A state quarterfinals Saturday afternoon at Bearcat Stadium.
The fourth-seeded Bearcats needed three outs to send an 8-8 game to the bottom of the seventh inning and give Beckman Dvorak a chance at a second walk-off hit against the Huskies this season.
But by the time he stepped up to the plate looking to relive his moment of glory in the season-opening 3-2 win on March 21 in Ridgefield, Othello’s bats were coming to a simmer in the dugout after erupting for six runs to give the Huskies a 14-8 lead. W.F. West could not inch any closer in the bottom of the seventh, and its season came to a close in the state quarterfinals for the second campaign in a row.
“Those guys just kicked our butt. We made a few mistakes here and there, but I’ve never seen a team hit like that in a game,” W.F. West head coach Jesse Elam said. “They saved it for the right time against us.”
In the opening round earlier in the day, the Bearcats, led by starting pitcher Hayden Rooney, put together a masterclass of pitching out of jams against Chief Sealth. The Seahawks stranded at least one runner in six of their seven innings as W.F. West cruised to a 2-0 win thanks to Miles Martin’s two-run double in the second inning.
Against fifth-seeded Othello in the quarters, it seemed that the trend would continue as Grady Westlund pitched around a leadoff double in the first and two runners in scoring position in the second to keep the scoreboard blank.
W.F. West only needed four at-bats to surpass its run total from Saturday morning. Weston Potter kicked off the scoring with a sacrifice fielder’s choice, and Carlos Vallejo knocked a two-run single on the next at-bat. The top of the Bearcats’ lineup kept churning hits in the second. Deacon Meller doubled, Ross Kelley singled, and Weston Potter’s line drive single to center scored them both to make it 5-0.
W.F. West’s nine-inning streak of holding opponents scoreless ended in the third with the Huskies plating three, and Westlund’s day was done after just three innings. Senior Deacon Meller tacked on an RBI single in the third to make it 6-3, and the Huskies took a run back in the fourth before the floodgates opened in the fifth.
Emmett Goodman, who replaced Hudson McCallum in the fifth with a runner at first, gave up an RBI single that cut the deficit to 6-5, and Kal-El Ozuna’s two-run triple to center field sent the Huskies crowd into a frenzy and vaulted Othello in front 7-6.
The Bearcats loaded the bases in the fifth with one out, but they came up empty as Hiro Smaciarz grounded into a 1-2-3 double play to end the inning. Othello added a tally to its lead on a Hilario Gonzalez IV RBI single in the sixth.
With the momentum racing in Othello’s favor, the Bearcats delivered in the clutch in the sixth. Vallejo’s sacrifice fly was deep enough to bring Kelley home from third, and Potter scored the game-tying run on a wild pitch.
The Bearcats needed their best inning of the season in the seventh to keep the red-hot Huskies off the bases and the scoreboard. Unfortunately for W.F. West, the opposite happened.
Six runs, four hits, two hit batters, a walk, and two sacrifices later, the Huskies were firmly in control, and the Bearcats’ dugout and home crowd were left sullen. No team had scored more than four in an inning against W.F. West this season until Othello in the seventh.
“They hit the ball every single time not at us,” Elam said. “You can’t have tough innings every single inning, and these guys had base runners on every inning.”
Needing a miracle in the bottom of the seventh to keep its season alive, W.F. West put two runners on, but a groundout by Meller served as the final out of the year in a 14-8 verdict.
“I think that was our best game of the year. We didn’t have a lot of mistakes, we hit the ball well, but they just beat us flat out,” Meller said.
W.F. West finishes with a 22-4 record and graduates nine seniors: Vallejo, Westlund, Potter, Isaiah Nachatilo, Meller, Andrew McMillan, Brooks Ledgerwood, Tucker Land, and Kelley. The group helped bring the Bearcats to the state tournament every season, including two final fours, and a district championship in 2023.
Elam lauded the seniors for their work ethic and coachability over the past four seasons.
“We’ve got some holes to fill, don’t we?” he said. “They’re great young men. That’s what is so special to me about these guys. They’re fun to be around, excited to be at practice every day and they’re coachable. I wish we could have ended it a little bit differently.”
Meller, who recorded three hits for the Bearcats in his final game, described the senior group as a family and believes that the program will be successful even with the bevy of graduates.
“It’s been a great four years. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it with anyone else. It’s the best program in the state. We work really hard, and we’re all friends outside of baseball,” Meller said of the senior group. “We’re more than a team. We’ve always been a family.”
