Photo by Aaron Meliza
Caption: First Baseman Sheldon Rouzan, moments away from knocking a foul ball

By Calvin Li

After a win and three losses against Skagit Valley last weekend, the SCC baseball team remains fifth out of eight in the North Region of Washington’s Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC).

Here, Phin Nation, is where you can stay updated on the Phins midseason performance with two of their best hitters: Zack Hill, who leads the team in with a batting average of .417, and David Becker, who leads the teams in runs batted in.

“Our pitching has been really good.” Zack Hill said. “We have a team goal of 1.2 for WHIP, and (pitcher Payton Macklin) was at like .7 before this weekend, which is crazy.”

WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) represents the average number of walks and hits a pitcher allows per inning. The average WHIP in the MLB is 1.28.

Yet Hill said the team hasn’t played their best baseball and he isn’t satisfied with the team’s performance as a whole.

“We have all the pieces, but they are just not coming together at the right time,” he said. “At the beginning of preseason, pitching was giving out a bunch of walks, leaving pitches over the plate… and (now the problem) kind of developed into hitting.”

He said there were games where they couldn’t hit but the team’s pitching was good, and now the problem goes back to their defense again. For example, he said, the team made about five errors — that is, mistakes by a fielder that allows a batter or baserunner to advance — in their first game against Skagit Valley on Sunday.

He thinks the the team’s biggest room for improvement is in the hitting, as hitters aren’t being as confident as they need to be.

Becker agreed that the team has exceptional individuals who struggle to work as a team.

“The success of Shoreline Athletics doesn’t hinge on how well the baseball team does,” he said. “But there are a lot of things that we can definitely hang our hat on. We had some really good pitching from a lot of our guys that have started games.”

With only 12 more games before the season ends, Becker is confident that the team can make it to playoffs.

“We already played some of the toughest teams this season,” Becker said. “We played Edmonds, and although Edmonds was able to sweep us, we were right with them for all four games. We also split with Everett and they are going to be in the playoffs for sure.”

Becker said the team can’t look past Douglas, Olympics or the brand new powerhouse in Bellevue, all of which they are going to face in the remaining season.

“But we control our destiny,” he said. “If we play hard and we play smart, we can definitely make it.”

The next Phins game is at 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 23, where the phins will travel to Douglas

to take on the Douglas Royals in a regional doubleheader. The next day, the Phins will host the Douglas Royals at 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. for another regional doubleheader.

A full schedule can be found at http://www.shoreline.edu/athletics/baseball/.