Several Mount Si High School baseball players are in the thick of their select seasons.
Leading the group is the Sno-Valley Wildcats, a local team of U18 players whose roster consists largely of Mount Si players. The ‘Cats have battled quite a bit this year, and currently are 9-12 on the season in their league, which boasts over two dozen teams.
In a game held Saturday, June 21, Sno-Valley found itself down 3-0 and 5-3, but rallied both times from those deficits and pulled out a 6-5 victory over the Longhorns from Sumner.
“It’s been about a .500 season,” said Wildcats coach Wes Guyer, who is part of a coaching staff that includes head coach Jim Robinson and assistant Mike Cantalini.
“We’ve been struggling, battling in league games,” Guyer said.
However, the team has performed very well in tournaments.
“We’re easily 5-1 or 4-1 coming out of tournaments,” Guyer said. “We’re more of a tournament club.”
Wildcat player Zach Guyer, who was on the Mount Si varsity team this spring, said playing tougher competition this year in the U18 division – last year this team was a U16 squad – helps him and his teammates get better as players.
“Playing the older guys is great, because it helps us build our skills,” he said.
The postseason appears to be very much in doubt at this point. However, another Wildcat player, Michael Davenport, who also saw time this season on the Mount Si varsity, knows there is one way to change that.
“Win out -I mean, nothing else we can do,” he said.
The Wildcats will travel to Washington State University for a tournament over the July Fourth weekend, and will finish up their season at home several days later.
Other teams with Mount Si talent are doing well. Dow 16s, who have Wildcat pitcher Frank Tassara on their roster, are a solid 25-8 as of June 26. Tassara has been a key to their success, going 4-1 with a save and a nearly lights-out 1.47 earned run average. He has walked 22 hitters and struck out a team-high 81. He also is getting it done with the bat, hitting .342 with 23 runs batted in. Among his highlights: a no-hitter against a team from Canada in a tournament north of the border in May. As a result, the pitcher landed the tournament most valuable player honors. Their season could go as long as mid-August if they make the playoffs and advance deep into the national tournament.
Fellow Mount Si teammate Danny Cavanaugh is also having a good season with his team, sponsored by the Fatburger restaurant chain. This team is 8-12 and is in the midst of several big tournaments. In a recent game, Cavanaugh was the hero of the day, hitting a two-out single in the bottom of the seventh, which scored two runs to tie their game with the Horrocks Brewers. Fatburger went on to win the contest, held at Bellevue Community College.
This team is scheduled to play games until the end of July. Their home field is Eastlake High School.
