File photo – Prescott Langer
The Wildcats are headed back to a North Coast Section championship game in baseball for the second straight year.
On Saturday afternoon, the top seeds in the Division-6 tournament took care of business in a semifinal showdown against No. 4 San Francisco Waldorf in Ferndale, winning 12-2 in five innings.
The win sets up a championship showdown against Point Arena, which edged South Fork 3-2 in the other semifinal in Miranda.
And this time the Wildcats will be hoping for a better outcome after losing last year’s D-6 final 9-0 at St. Bernard’s.
“The No. 1 goal all year was to get back to this game, and now we’re there,” Ferndale head coach Justin Andersen said. “We’ve got to put our best foot forward and go play a quality opponent. It’ll be fun.”
The difference this year is that the Cats will get to host the championship game in front of a home crowd, with the big showdown set for Wednesday evening at 5 p.m.
On Saturday, it was the sophomores who set the tone and stole the show against SF Waldorf.
In particular Tristen Titus, who took full advantage of a rare opportunity at the plate and finished 3-for-3 with a pair of doubles and five RBIs.
Fellow sophomores Tanner Pidgeon and Prescott Langer also impressed and the three standouts combined for seven hits and nine RBIs.
“The big thing for me is how the sophomores stepped up,” Andersen said after the game. “The future (of the team) is going in the right direction.”
Langer finished 2-for-2 with a double and three RBIs and scored two runs, while Pidgeon was 2-for-3 with an RBI and a run.
Langer also pitched three innings for the win on the mound.
The multi-sport sophomore standout allowed just one earned run on three hits and a walk and struck out six.
File photo
He was effective from the first pitch, retiring the first three batters in the top of the first inning in just 10 pitches.
“He kind of set the tone,” Andersen said.
So too did the Ferndale offense, which quickly went to work and scored seven runs in the bottom of the first to leave the Wolverines in a big hole early in the game.
They would never recover.
The fast start for the Wildcats was also a nice response to one of the most disappointing performances of the season in their last outing in an error-filled Charles Lakin tournament semifinal nine days ago.
“I fully believe that was a learning experience for us,” Andersen said of the last outing, which was just the team’s second loss all spring. “We played today like there was a sense of urgency.
“I liked what I saw today.”
File photo
Austin Michel also had an impact at the plate and was 2-for-2 with an RBI and two runs, while Levi Dixon was 2-for-3 with an RBI and Trent Titus went 1-for-4 with a run.
Michel and Dixon each also pitched a scoreless inning in relief.
The Cats had six hits and two walks in the first inning to help with the fast start and they only committed one error on defense for the entire game.
The NCS championship game appearance is the third for the school this year, following the section titles the Cats won in football and girls soccer in the fall.
The Wildcats will be playing for their fifth NCS title in baseball.
They previously won section championships in the sport in 2003, 2010, 2016 and 2017, the latter two with Andersen as head coach.
