Sherwood reaches OIBA tourney goal

Baseball: The Tonkin Nissan team sweeps Gladstone in playoff series

By Dan Brood

The Times, Jul 29, 2010

DAN BROOD / The Times

THE DELIVERY — Tonkin Nissan’s Tanner Kichler fires a pitch to the plate during Saturday’s game at Gladstone. The Sherwood team won 6-4.

ADVERTISEMENTS

GLADSTONE — With its 6-4 win at Gladstone, the Tonkin Nissan OIBA baseball team reached its goal.

But the Sherwood-based squad isn’t about to slow down now.

Tonkin Nissan, with its victory over Gladstone on Saturday, won the teams’ best-of-three playoff series 2-0 while also clinching a berth in the OIBA season-ending state tournament.

“That’s big,” Tanner Kichler, who was the winning pitcher in Saturday’s game, said of the state tourney bid. “Getting there was our goal. We had to prove that we deserve to be there.”

“It’s a big deal,” said Sherwood outfielder Michael Balfour, who belted a home run in Saturday’s contest.

Sherwood opened play at the 16-team state tournament, which is being held at Tigard and Barlow high schools, Wednesday with a first-round game with Reynolds at Tigard. Results of that game weren’t available when the Times went to press.

Sherwood, if it won Wednesday’s game, will meet either Tualatin or West Linn in a tourney winners’ bracket quarterfinal game tonight (Thursday) at 7 p.m. at Tigard. If Sherwood lost on Wednesday, it will meet either Tualatin or West Linn today at 1 p.m. in a losers’ bracket first-round game.

The Tonkin Nissan squad, coming off the sweep of Gladstone, took some high hopes to the state tournament.

“We want to go all the way,” Kichler said. “We want to stay in as long as we can. It will be fun.”

“It’s going to be good to see those (Class) 6A teams,” Balfour said. “We want to finish strong.”

The Sherwood team, for the most part, seemed to play strong in Saturday’s series-clinching win at Gladstone.

Tonkin Nissan took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning of the contest. Justin Davis, a Sherwood High School senior-to-be, led off the game with a first-pitch double to left-center field. Davis then moved to third base on a wild pitch and then scored the first run of the game on a groundout by Tyler Rome.

The Sherwood team tacked on two more runs in the second inning. Travis Dyer reached base on an error, Geoff Walck was hit by a pitch and Brandon Scott put down a bunt single to load the bases with no outs. Dyer then scored when Connor Munro drew a bases-loaded walk. Walck scored on a fielder’s choice grounder by Davis to give Tonkin Nissan a 3-0 lead.

1 | 2 Next Page >>