Summer was bright for a local youth baseball team that saw a solid first season on the diamond.
The Snoqualmie-based Wildcats under-16 boys’ select club recently completed their schedule with a 25-14 record and a second place finish in their state tournament.
“It went unbelievably very well. I couldn’t have asked for anything more,” said the team’s head coach, Troy Grant, who was approached to take this position by Mount Si’s baseball coach, Chaz Carr. Grant previously coached junior college baseball in Iowa.
Max Brown, an incoming junior at Mount Si, was one of three players from this spring’s Wildcat high school varsity team who played for the summer select squad. Joining fellow varsity ‘Cats Trevor Taylor and Matt Bankston, Brown was excited to join a local team with a roster of Valley talent, where he wouldn’t feel like a stranger.
“We’ve been playing together since Little League so we already know each other,” Brown said.
Most of the other players had been part of Mount Si’s junior varsity team.
For JV athlete Travis Hilleary, the season was a blast.
“I liked it a lot because our home field was at Mount Si,” he said — home games were played on the high school baseball field.
The Wildcats played in the Mickey Mantle Olympic division, which is a 24-team league with teams hailing from across the Puget Sound area. Opponents included Seattle, Bellevue, Everett, Covington and Sumner. The competition is stronger than in the companion Cascade Division.
“For the most part it’s a little higher caliber,” Grant said.
One thing that Hilleary noted about Grant was his fiery coaching style, which the junior-to-be liked.
“It makes us want to do better,” he said.
“He’s not afraid to say what he thinks,” added Brown.
Grant’s assistant coach, C.J. Stanford, was seen by Brown as being mellower. The mix of styles among the coaches helped the team.
“It brought us together and it made us a better team,” Brown said.
The Wildcats hovered just above .500 for most of the first half of the season, then won six of seven games to close out the regular season.
The ‘Cats then opened the state tournament with a pair of wins July 14 and 15, earning them a bye and a date July 17 with the JBA Cubs, a team which beat the Wildcats handily in regular season play. The Cubs once again took care of business with ease, knocking the Valley team into a win-or-go-home game July 18. The Wildcats won that game to earn a rematch with the JBA. The Cubs won again July 19 in a 5-0 shutout to take the title.
Grant is looking forward to next year.
“I’d love to continue this on,” he said.
Next season, the Wildcats plan on carrying about to 20 players — up from the 12 they fielded this year — as they move up into the Connie Mack U-17/18 league.
