| SPORTS
by
Jack Kintner
Blaine
pitching shows promise
The Blaine boys baseball team dropped their first jamboree
contest 4-0, a three-inning practice affair against Nooksack
played under threatening, wintry skies last Saturday at
the Pipe. The short contest illustrated the direction this
team will have to go if there’s to be life after
the regular season ends.
Hitting, or the lack of it, will
be the Borderites’ bugaboo,
developing some knack at the plate their quest and success
or failure their triumph or defeat. It’s one thing
to coach practically every other skill needed to be comfortably
adept on the diamond, but hitting is, as head coach Gary
Clausen likes to say, “basically guesswork. You can
drill the fundamentals but hitting is timing and anticipation,
and if the pitcher’s good he’ll mess up your
timing and put the ball where you’re not looking
for it.” With most bats, the sweet spot is about
the size of a dime.
Which makes the numbers put up by seniors
Joey Paciorek and catcher Aaron Johnson (AJ) last year
all the more impressive. Paciorek hit a phenomenal .456
with four home runs, 17 RBIs, 28 runs scored and 11 stolen
bases.
AJ hit .333 with one dinger and 22 RBIs. If you
ever wondered what a pro baseball scout looks like, come
to any of the Blaine games this year and look for slightly
shopworn middle-aged guys you’ve never seen before
who keep to themselves and can’t stop drooling. Joey’s
the real deal, and this season is your last chance to see
this outstanding athlete and great kid perform at home.
The rest of the team? Well, after Joey and AJ, and DH
and first baseman Mike Bird, let’s just say that
it’s
a good thing that Clausen has a new pitching machine to
put in the cages with these eager but somewhat raw kids.
Unlike the old machine, this one has a design that lets
them see the ball a second or two before it’s released
which allows them to work on timing, and we should see
some improvement as the season wears on.
Defensively they’ll
miss the strong-arm tactics of pitcher Rob Bleecker, who
earned a spot as a freshman on NCAA division III PLU’s
varsity this spring, but have a reasonably good group with
which to begin the spring campaign.
The top tier is led,
again, by Paciorek who’s about
2 to 3 mph ahead of where he was at this time last year.
On Saturday he clocked an honest 84 before the season really
began. Classmate Ryan Johnson will also start on the mound
as will left-handed freshman Kyle Olason, a good all-around
player whose dad, Troy, owns a bit of Blaine baseball history
in having hit the only home run produced by the entire
team in 1990.
However, despite an embarrassingly low team batting average
of just .267 they also won the state championship that
year, the title game a 5-2 victory over the Connell Eagles
pitched by Blaine’s assistant athletic director Wayne
Vezzetti. But I digress.
The pitching staff is rounded out
by sophomore Daniel Gorze, who performed against Ferndale
earlier this week, seniors Ryan Johnson, a likely starter,
Daniel Diaz, Nate Dodgson, Rob Bleecker’s younger
brother Brandon, a junior.
Blaine dropped its first game
of the season 5-3, a non-league road contest Tuesday
afternoon played in the slop and mire of Ferndale. The
pre-game warmups were canceled because of rain that stopped
just before the first pitch. Paciorek still went 2 for
3.
The Borderites next face Bellingham in another non-league
contest Thursday, March 15 at 4 p.m. at the Pipe.
Slivers from the bench
Blaine side drops first match
Nooksack handed Blaine a 4-1 defeat Tuesday in a soccer
game played at Nooksack elementary school to open the
season for both clubs. Casey McCabe scored Blaine’s
lone goal in the 67th minute after the Borderites spotted
the Pioneers a four goal lead. Blaine’s next home
opponent is on St. Patrick’s Day (Saturday, March
17) when they host Lynden at noon at the Pipe.
Lady B’s
rained out
Blaine’s first fastpitch game under new head coaches
Tim Esposito and Don Ambrose got rained out after three
innings last weekend at Squalicum high school. The game
will be made up later. The girls’ next game is Thursday,
March 15 at Ferndale.
Birch Bay Road Race set for March 31
Lynne Hoskins announces the second annual Birch Bay Road
Race on Saturday, March 31, benefiting an organization
called Girls on the Run. The sanctioned race will be
run over distances of 5, 10 and 30 K. For more info call
her at 360/325-0715 or visit www.birchbayroadrace.com/index.htm. |
