Clark Baseball’s Cinderella season comes to an end with a 3-7 loss to the Southwest Dragons

In a season where prognosticators said Clark Baseball would be 5th in District, had no pitching, and wouldn’t make the play-offs, the 2011 Cougar Baseball team proved them all wrong. Winning 15 of their 16 District games, Clark became 27 5a District champs for the second time in school history and set a new school record with 15 wins. Watching the team play throughout the season, we saw these players become a team – each of them contributing and picking up to help win games. Our bats were loud, our fielding was good and our pitching was far better than predicted. No one did it alone – everyone on the team contributed key plays to make this a special season. For the fans, most of us having watched these boys play together and against each other since they were in Little League, it was a special year – as we watched the team play for each other. They exhibited confidence and skills that propelled them to the District Championship and for that we are proud.

Sometimes magical moments are not destined to last long – and sadly, Cougar Baseball fell in the first round of the play-offs this year, with one win and two losses. They faced extremely good pitching from Southwest in all three games, as well as consistent hitting. Cougars battled well in the first two games, winning the first game 3-2 and losing the second game 4-5. In the final game of the 3 game series, Clark lost 3-7. Starting on the mound was Senior Ryan Skowronski, who pitched 4 innings, giving up 7 runs. Chad Dullnig, Junior came in to pitch the final 3 innings giving up no additional runs. The SW Dragons scored first with 2 runs in the top of the 2nd inning, but Clark came back to even the score at the bottom of the 2nd, but left 2 runners stranded to end the inning. The Dragons scored 3 runs in the 4th inning and another 2 runs in the 5th inning, which ended Clark 2, Southwest 7. The final run of the game for either team was in the bottom of the 7th inning, when Senior Braden Mattson led off with a home run, but Clark could not get another runner past 2nd base and the game ended with Clark’s loss.

For our seniors – Jason Cervantes, Tyler Reinagel, Braden Mattson, Hunter McFall, Ed Moore, Matt Cohen, Ryan Skowronski, & Chris Werland – good luck and thanks for 4 great years of Clark Baseball. To our juniors – Robert Martin, John Henderson, Devin Haley, Pete Sanchez, Chad Dullnig, Trevor Settles, Manny Menezes and our underclassmen – Blake Jones and Chase Jones – Good Luck with your 2012 season and we’ll see you in next year’s playoffs! To Coach Velazquez – Thank you for making these boys a team and teaching them how to win games with humility and how to play for each other.

-G. Graham