It’s never easy to hit a home run.
It’s made even more difficult in a big ballpark against the defending state champions. Then add in the pressure of a league title game.
None of that ran through the mind of Jake Wikel, whose solo homer lifted the Lake Washington High School baseball team to a 1-0 win over Mercer Island in the KingCo 3A tournament championship game on Tuesday at Bannerwood Ballpark in Bellevue.
Wikel was focused only on Mercer Island starter Harrison Goonewardene; two outs, top of the fourth inning.
“He threw me two sliders in my last at-bat, so I knew he was going to come with a fastball so he could get ahead and throw those sliders again,” Wikel said. “I was just sitting on the fastball, he threw one up and he missed his spot.”
Goonewardene’s “miss” landed 362 feet from home plate, just over the fence in left center field.
Here's that flyout to Pennington in left field and the resulting mob. Lake Washington 1, Mercer Island 0. #WaPreps pic.twitter.com/9ETtpVc3Ce
— John William Howard (@JowardHoward) May 11, 2016
The rest, as Lake Washington coach Derek Bingham put it, was up to Kang starter Paul Falco.The senior pitched a complete game for Lake Washington (20-2), allowing three hits, striking out a pair of batters and walking two.
“My curveball wasn’t on, my changeup kept spiking into the ground, but I kept dominating with my fastball,” Falco said. “I kept trying to hit my spots as well as I could, and it really worked out for me.”
Falco tossed a no-hitter through three innings, finally giving up a base hit to Michael Petrie during the bottom of the forth inning.
“He was every bit the league MVP that he is,” Bingham said. “He pitched his heart out and I’m super proud of him and the whole team. It was a team effort. We had so many chances to score, but they made great pitches and great plays in key spots, and we couldn’t get more than one across.”
The Islanders (18-4) threatened to tie or go ahead more than once, most notably a fly ball to deep center field during the bottom of the fourth caught by a diving Connor Johnson. Then, Matt Scheffler ran down a baserunner at third base before Falco induced a popup to strand two Islander runners.
Mercer Island sent 10 fly balls into play, and only one dropped for a base hit.
“Offensively, we didn’t hit too many balls out [of the infield] or hit too many in the air,” Mercer Island coach Dominic Woody said. “Full credit to those guys. They got the one run they needed to win. Unfortunately, for us, it was just one of those days. Our guys go out there and do a great job, but it’s hard to win when you don’t score any runs.”
The Islanders won the season series 2-1 and the regular-season league title, but for the second year in a row, will have to play in the tournament’s runner-up game and work their way through the bracket if they hope to make the state tournament.
The Kangs are straight through to the Bannerwood regional, and are scheduled to play in the first round of the state tournament on May 21 at Bannerwood Park.
Bingham isn’t about to count the Islanders as out of the running.
“I’m just convinced, and we’ve told the kids all week, that these two teams could not be more even,” he said. “We’ve played them eight times in the last two years, and we’ve split it. I would be surprised and disappointed if we didn’t get them one more time, to be honest.”
Red-faced and with his long hair tousled under his ballcap, Wikel was one of the last players to make his way through the throng of fans and family behind the Kangs’ dugout after the game.
“With our pitching staff, I feel like we can go as far as anyone,” Wikel said. “As long as they’re throwing strikes and we’re getting outs, the hitting will come. Today we had seven-plus hits and we couldn’t put them together, but I think in the playoffs, we’ll be able to do whatever we want.”
