Philomath High School’s baseball team will trot a lot of familiar kids onto the field Monday afternoon when the Warriors open their season in Adair Village. Veteran coach Levi Webber has most of his starting lineup back with only two players lost to graduation.
“They’re all very competitive and pretty much every one of them for the most part does multiple sports,” Webber said. “I think they all expect that we should be competing for a league title and a deep run in the playoffs.”
Last season, the Warriors went 18-9, finished runner-up in the Oregon West and reached the Class 4A state playoffs. Philomath exited the postseason earlier than it wanted, however, with a loss in the first round.
“It was a tough one at The Dalles last year because we felt like it was a game that we should have won,” Webber said. “To have a really solid group of guys come back and chase that thing, it definitely puts a little fire in the belly for sure.”
The Warriors have an exceptional senior presence with seven on the roster.
“We bring back a really good, solid core to our team from what we were last year,” Webber said. “Of those seven seniors, five of them are going to start fairly regularly for us. It’s a good problem to have when you get most of your guys coming back.”
The five seniors that will likely be penciled into starting lineups include Joe Barnes, Logan Matthews, Grant Niemann, Kayson Olsen and Brady Russell. Colton Hruska and Mitchell Berklund are also back in uniform.
Only pitcher-shortstop Mason Stearns and the hard-hitting Kash Lindsey graduated.
Philomath lost one of its top pitchers from a year ago in Stearns, who was a Co-Player of the Year in the conference, but returns a solid rotation led by Barnes and junior Caleb Babcock.
“Those are two arms that are going to be dynamic as long as they can throw strikes and stay healthy,” Webber said. “Both of those guys are going to be a real force at our level this year so it’s going to be really fun to watch them.”
Babcock has been strong in intrasquad matchups this preseason, the coach said. Barnes has been more limited so far with his participation in high school downhill skiing.
Matthews saw time as a starter and reliever last season and is another key returnee on the mound.
“He’s an effective pitcher and does a good job throwing strikes and pounding the zone,” Webber said. “He’s going to have some big innings for us this year so it will be fun to watch him progress.”
Junior Wylie Griffith will also throw innings this season and senior Grant Niemann could be called upon to throw. Young arms that could also be factors include sophomores Jacob Hernandez, Camaron Kvidt and AJ Altishin.
“So, we’ve got some depth on the mound,” Webber said. “We really like what we have at the top of the rotation to give us some opportunities and win baseball games.”
Behind the plate, Niemann returns as the starting catcher. Junior Rocco De La Rosa, a likely starter at third base, will back him up.
“This will be his third year, essentially, as our starting catcher,” Webber said about Niemann. “Grant is very experienced — good receiver, good blocker and does a good job handling the pitching staff and is increasingly throwing better and better. He’s looked good back there.”
Beyond De La Rosa at third base, the rest of the infield includes Russell at first, Griffith at second and Olsen at shortstop. Heading into the season, Russell will be sidelined with a nagging injury from football season.
“If we can get him out there, he was a solid, solid defender and a guy in the middle of our order that had some big knocks,” Webber said. “Hopefully we can get him back at some point throughout the season.”
Altishin appears to be the answer at first base with Russell out. A player with the skills of an infielder, Altishin played right field last season so Webber could get his bat in the lineup.
Griffith is a third-year varsity player at second base, although he missed some time last year with an injury. Kvidt and sophomore Nate Bennett could also be contributors at that position.
Olsen will take over shortstop on a full-time basis.
He played there when Mason pitched, so he’s got some experience there,” Webber said. “He played really well … and he’s just going to kind of lock it down. What we really like about that is it’s not very often you get a guy to play shortstop who’s very good at it and then doesn’t also pitch. I’m not saying he can’t pitch but we don’t need him to pitch because we have some good or better options and he can focus on playing defense up the middle.”
De La Rosa at third base made significant strides with his defense over the course of last season and has exhibited a new level of confidence in preseason workouts.
“Rocco’s as athletic of a defender as we’ve ever had at third base,” Webber said. “He gets to a lot of balls that most high school third basemen don’t get to and he has very good instincts and does a really good job over there.”
In the outfield, Babcock, a first-team all-conference selection last season, returns in center but Webber said he has legitimate options in Matthews and Hernandez. Last year, Babcock played with the American Legion team in Corvallis while Matthews and Hernandez racked up innings in summer ball locally.
“There’s a ton of experience between the three of them out there and then they can kind of bounce over to whatever corner we need that day,” Webber said. “
Hruska will also see innings in the outfield, possibly in a platoon-type role. Altishin could also factor into the outfield when Russell returns to the field.
“We have some options, which is always fun to see and it allows you to do some things and allows competition, which is the biggest thing,” Webber said. “It forces kids to have to compete every day and show up and continue to earn your position.”
At the plate, Webber said players have worked hard to improve.
“They put a ton of time into the cages this year,” he said. “We started our offseason workouts that first week of January coming back from Christmas break and we had 20 to 25 guys for probably four or five weeks in there every night. So, you know, they’re hungry to get after it.”
With 32 athletes in the baseball program, Webber said he will likely carry a few more players on the varsity compared to what has been done in the past. The junior varsity team appears as though it might be a little heavy on numbers with 18 to 20 suiting up.
“We don’t have quite enough for two (JV) teams but we’ll try to fit in a couple of extra games down the line if we need to get some guys more playing time,” Webber said. “We have strong numbers, another big freshmen class.”
Philomath will open the season Monday with a 5 p.m. game at Santiam Christian. The team then heads to Junction City on March 21 before hitting the coast during Spring Break for tournament games in Newport against Molalla, Marist Catholic and Henley.
The Warriors have what would be considered to be a very tough schedule.
“It’s going to be a grind, especially early on, we’ve got a pretty challenging schedule,” Webber said. “That’s not uncommon — we like to do that just because we feel like we get a lot more out of playing quality playoff-type opponents. You’re going to learn a lot more and understand the type of competition you’re going to see down at the end of the line.”
In addition to those first few weeks, other nonconference opponents include Crook County, Crescent Valley, La Grande, West Albany, The Dalles and Gladstone. In the league, North Marion is the defending champion and a team that reached the 4A semifinals last year, falling to eventual champion Scappoose. Newport and Stayton were also competitive in the conference a year ago.
