Shorewood baseball season ends with State 3A championship games full of strange twists

Shorewood’s baseball season ended with a second-place finish in the State tournament after the Thunderbirds lost to champion Mercer Island Saturday in a game that sent the T-birds to extra innings for the second consecutive day and the third time in four tournament games.

Shorewood and Mercer Island were in a scoreless tie Saturday after the regulation seven innings.

Mercer Island loaded the bases in the bottom of the eighth with two outs; then, the Islander batter walked to drive home the winning run, but umpires ruled that the run didn’t count because all four runners hadn’t touched the next base.

The game stayed scoreless until the 13th inning, when an Islander hit a game-winning home run.

The loss came a day after Shorewood had won a Friday extra-inning semifinal game from Central Kitsap.

Shorewood’s baseball season ended with a 22-5 record.

Our news partner, The Seattle Times made these notes:

“Shorewood played 12 extra innings in its last four games, all must-win contests. All three of the games that went into extras finished with a 1-0 final score. 

“In those four games, which spanned a week, Nick Edney caught all 40 innings.”

See that Seattle Times story here

Cole McKisson
Photo by Wayne Pridemore

Another Times story said this about the 1-0 loss to Mercer Island:

“For Shorewood, the roller coaster of emotions left the ending even more heartbreaking. 

“’I just told them, we battled as hard as we could,’ Shorewood coach Wyatt Tonkin said. 

“The odd eighth inning overshadowed a great pitching duel between Shorewood’s Cole McKisson and Mercer Island’s Alfonzo Gonzalez, with both pitching into extra innings.”

Read game story here

Ian Oxnevad
Photo by Wayne Pridemore

Shorewood had reached the final, with another strange 1-0 extra-inning victory Friday over Central Kitsap.

The Times said this: 

In eight innings, the Thunderbirds won on a sacrifice fly from catcher Nick Edney. Bases were loaded after a single when Eden’s hit lifted Shorewood to face Mercer Island in the 3A Championship. After the winning run came across the plate, a fight broke out between the teams. No ejections or injuries resulted from the fight.

As Wagner popped up from his slide, he let out a scream and ran to hug senior starting pitcher Ian Oxnevad, who was streaming out of the dugout. It appeared Wagner accidentally bumped Central Kitsap pitcher Eric McCormick, who reacted with a shove. 

A shoving match between the teams followed and it took a few moments to be broken up. 

The fight overshadowed a brilliant pitching duel between Oxnevad and McCormick. 

Oxnevad, who tossed 11 innings of scoreless ball in last Saturday’s one-run win, went eight innings Friday, allowing four hits and a walk while striking out four. In a continuing theme from his gem last week when he picked off four runners at first, the senior left-hander nabbed two.

See the Times story about the Friday semifinal game here