THURSTON — The Thurston baseball team saw West Albany earlier in the playoffs this year and defeated the Bulldogs 16-7 in a pendulum game at Flaten Field on Friday.
“That team is such a well-coached team,” said coach Dennis Minium about the hard-fought battle that lasted for three hours on Friday. “They do all the little things right; they battle. I have nothing but respect for them. They’re a really classy team. We’ve seen them a lot in the last couple of years. We knew they’d come to play and they weren’t going to lay over. We preached all week about being aggressive, playing our game of baseball, and they’ve got to come to you and not play afraid.”
It began when the Colts started things differently than they did in Round 1 — they hit the ground running early this time. They tallied 5 runs for an impressive lead in the bottom of the second inning. However, things started to take a turn when, at the top of the third inning, the Bulldogs advanced on the Colts’ errors and pitching hits by the starting pitcher, Connor Molony. The Bulldogs tallied 3 runs from this situation.
Minium gathered his team for a huddle and took out Molony for Collin Hernandez.
“We made some uncharacteristic errors that we typically don’t make,” said Minium. “We were in a situation where we were approaching a lot of pitches in an inning, so we thought, we’re just going to go to Collin. He’s ready to go.”
However, in typical Colts fashion, things started to turn around when the “bats came alive” and the Colts recorded a couple of key hits.
“Next thing you know, we’re 16-7 and we move on to Tuesday,” said Minium.
Up next, the Colts charge off to the 5A Semifinals on Tuesday against the No. 23 Canby Cougars (24-5).
Meanwhile THS Softball…
Thurston continues its historic run and advances to the semifinals after downing Wilsonville 12-2. It started when the Colts recorded an explosive 8-run second inning, which resulted in an insurmountable lead for the Wildcats. They enter the 5A semifinals against No. 3 Crater (21-8) on Tuesday. Despite the Comets being lower ranked, they took first in the Midwestern League over the Colts and won Game Two of their doubleheader against the Colts in league play earlier in the season.
