It was a split week for the Mount Si varsity baseball team as they posted a win against a good Interlake team, then lost to a Newport team currently ranked high in the state 3A high school baseball poll.

Last Tuesday, the Wildcats took nine innings and outlasted the Interlake Saints, thanks to a heroic hit. Jake Handy’s single with the bases loaded scored Erik Alexander from third and the Wildcats won 3-2 in extra innings.

“I was just looking for something middle away to hit the opposite direction, hopefully a fly ball, so we could tag and get him home, but it went over their heads and we scored and won the game,” said Handy.

Derek Aldrich went 2-for-3 to lead Mount Si offensively.

The Wildcats started things off in the bottom of the second inning with a bases-loaded walk by Ian Atkinson. With one out recorded, Remo Castagno put Mount Si on the board first. Interlake scored twice in the fourth, thanks to a ground-out and a double off Wildcat starter Chase Korsmo, who did well in his five innings of work. Korsmo gave up five hits and two earned runs, and struck out four.

Mount Si tied the game in the bottom of the fourth with the bases loaded. A sacrifice fly out by Alexander scored Thomas Taylor.

Wildcat defense in the late innings set up the final offensive rally. Interlake’s last major offensive threat was killed thanks to two great Mount Si defensive plays: a double play at second base in which Saint’s runners were nailed coming to and leaving from second base; then a sliding catch in front of the dugout by Zach Solomon.

“Well, I saw it go off the bat and I knew I had to get there because if I didn’t, there’s been so many mistakes, and everyone’s been capitalizing. So I knew I had to make that catch. So there was no way I wasn’t catching it,” Solomon said.

After the game, the Wildcat players and coaches gathered for their post game meeting, and the mood was rather light.

“A lot of people did a lot of things right and we had quite a few people unfortunately that did a lot of things wrong. And we just wanted to air it out and get it out and they didn’t want to talk about the things that they did wrong. They just wanted to talk about the things they did right, the positive things,” said Mount Si coach Gary McGregor.

The Wildcats went to Newport last Thursday in the rain. The Knights used a strong complete game effort from their pitcher, Dan Hagensen, to post the 7-3 victory. Alexander put the Wildcats in the lead to open the game with a three-run home run in the third. Newport however, scored four times in the fourth off of pitcher Alexander. Then they added runs in the fifth and sixth to put it away.

Hagensen gave up seven hits including the long ball by Alexander, and struck out seven in his effort.

Mount Si is on the road all week. Wednesday they will be at Sammamish and Friday they are at Mercer Island. Wednesday’s first pitch is at 4 p.m., while Friday’s game is under the lights at Island Crest Park at 6:30 p.m. The Wildcats are just a game up going into this week for the sixth and final Kingco playoff spot so wins are extremely critical this week. #