Grizzlies close out incredible season
Lassen High School Grizzly baseball wrapped up its season Tuesday, May 14 in the third game of the best of three series in the semi-final round and they fell, 6-3.
The Grizzlies finished the season 18-9 overall and 8-2 in league and finished as league champions.
The Grizzlies started the season with bad news as Finn Osborn, returning pitcher, was unable to pitch this year. Osborn was considered one of the better pitchers in our section. Losing him put the Grizzlies in a hole at the start of their season.
Along with Osborn, David Painter, another returning pitcher from the previous year, had great success as a junior and was expected to be relied on heavily was injured off and on through the season which limited his innings.
So the Grizzlies played out the season without their two better-projected pitchers. However, Ethan Williams, Lowgan Fisher and Brock Wolf all stepped up and pitched some incredible innings through the season.
Coach Scott Forman said, “With a few ups and downs those three guys were very important to our success.”
The Grizzlies finished the season with big swings at the plate with Cole Dyer leading the way with a .489 average, Miles Ormachea hit .453, Evan Westfall .367, Williams .358 and Wolf .338.
Wolf led the Grizzlies in RBIs bringing in 27 runs; Dyer followed with 24; Williams brought in 23; Osborn finished with 18 RBIs.
In runs scored, Ormachea scored 44 runs leading the Grizzlies; Wolf followed with 21; and Williams finished the season with 20 runs scored.
In the doubles department, the Grizzlies were led by Dyer, hitting 12 doubles. Williams and Wolf followed that up with nine each.
In stolen bases the Grizzlies relied on Ormachea who stole a total of 15 throughout the season, Wolf finished the season with seven, Westfall and Osborn recorded six stolen bases to round out the year.
The Grizzlies’ top pitcher leading the team in ERA was Williams, with a 2.54 ERA as well as in strikeouts with 25 total, Fisher and Wolf each had five wins as pitchers, while Fisher finished the season at 24 strikeouts.
All-league honors for the season were Dyer who was honored with MVP of the league; Osborn honored with All-League alongside Ormachea and Wolf. Honorable mention went to Westfall.
Forman said, “We graduated six seniors, and we will miss them all. They all were very important to our success. The seniors are Ryan Elison, David Painter, Cade Lile, Jake Lepage, Cole Dyer and Finn Osborn. More important, these six seniors are great young men with a lot of character. We, as coaches, wish them the best of luck in the future.”
