CRESWELL – Zero. In the 25 years before Kevin Feist took over the Creswell baseball program, the Bulldogs had zero 15-plus win seasons. In Feist’s three years at the helm, the Bulldogs have already had two such seasons, and this year’s team won 15 in a row at one point.
This year’s state championship run came up short, but by reaching the semifinals, the Bulldogs still made it further than any team in program history.
The Bulldogs had four seniors this year, and the strides the program made over that class’s four years was astounding.
“They won five games their freshman year, the year before I came here. We made steady improvements, and then to get to 24 wins this year, be league champions, get to the state semifinals. I mean, that’s a lot to be proud of,” Feist said.
The style in which the Bulldogs have played this year and had so much success with – sound defense, pitching to contact, and using situational hitting and baserunning to manufacture runs – is one with limited margin for error. In Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to South Umpqua, the Bulldogs saw that play out.
Baseball can be a cruel sport, and the very thing that has been a strength can become a weakness because of a few balls bouncing the wrong way. Feist’s team had more errors than its opponent for only the sixth time in 30 games this season, a remarkable accomplishment, but Tuesday’s two errors directly resulted in the Lancers’ third and fourth runs.
On offense, the Bulldogs had many chances to bring runners around. They had 13 players reach base compared to the Lancers’ 10, but were 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, stranding nine total runners.
“All the fundamental things that you have to do, we worked on them in practice. You still have to take it in a game and put it in the batter’s box, and we didn’t do as well at that today as we could have. We did have some kids that did a great job with that, and we had some great hits to the opposite field because of that,” Feist said. “But as a group overall and in the situations where we had a chance with a guy at third base to execute, we just didn’t get it done. Not enough times. That’s baseball. That’s athletics. That’s life.”
The run the Bulldogs went on this season brought the community out in full force. At least a hundred Creswell students, student-athletes, parents, and community members were out supporting their team, to the extent that it was hard to find even a standing place from which to see the game on the Creswell side.
“Our community and parents have been so great to embrace these guys, and they deserve it,” Feist said. “The baseball program here didn’t get a lot of love for a long time, and they’re getting it now, and the kids have earned that. I’m proud of them. They deserve it. And these guys have just done a great job supporting them and will continue to do so. Those are great people. Those kids are great kids. Those parents are great parents. Our community that comes out and supports these guys are really great people, really positive.”
The Bulldogs lose three major contributors in seniors Matthew Jenkins, a first-team all state player as a junior who was severely limited this season due to a back injury, catcher Cody Winn, and second hitter Kayden Roberts, but retain much of their core.
Top pitchers Jaxon Pelham, Landon Vaughn, and Zak Hermansen, who are also impactful as hitters and fielders when not pitching, return for their senior seasons, as well as the “heart of the order,” third hitter and shortstop Colton Hartman, fourth hitter Colden Clark, and fifth hitter Gavin Crowl, who will likely step into the catcher role next season. They will be all the better for having faced the pressure of a deep playoff run, and found themselves up for the challenge.
“I think this season we’ve changed how people view Creswell baseball, and we have a lot of returning players, so I think we’ve developed a winning program,” Crowl said. “I think next year we’ll have a really good year too.”
