The Tam High Varsity Baseball team (10-10 MCAL record) took their playoff journey as far as it could go when they played a game at home against the Justin-Siena Braves (9-10 MCAL record) on May 13. This game was not originally on the Hawks’ schedule, but after losing two games in a row, including one to Justin-Siena, the Hawks ended their regular season tied for the sixth and final MCAL playoff spot with the Braves. The winner would advance to the playoffs to play the Drake Pirates (14-7 MCAL record) while the loser would have to wait to accomplish their dreams of winning MCALs until next season.

The Hawks ended up beating the Braves 5-0 to clinch their first playoff spot since 2006 in front of a home crowd at Tam. Tam Head Coach Mike Terry sent out junior Sam Raffa as the starter for the Hawks. “Sam Raffa has been consistent for us, that kid has ice water in his veins,” said Terry. “I just thought that he was the freshest pitcher that we had and I had confidence that he was going to go out there and throw strikes and keep us in the game.” Raffa threw four shutout innings against the Braves to help lead his team to victory, while allowing only two hits and striking out four.

“I’m really happy right now,” said Raffa. “I felt great and I went four strong innings, but it was Kit Larson who closed it out.”

Senior Andrew Kennedy and junior Kit Larson helped while Raffa pitched a three-hit shutout.

“Anytime you come into a play-in game, you know you can lose the ballgame…but the guys rose to the occasion and they were tired and a little bit beat up, but we played our game today and it was just a good win,” said Coach Terry.

Tam catcher, junior Harry Spilman scored what turned out to be the game winning run back in the first inning by running all the way from first base to home plate on an overthrow by the catcher into the outfield. “We are at the playoffs for the first time since ’06 and it came down to the wire,” he said, adding that the win was “awesome.”

“We just needed to come out here, win a game, and we did that,” said Tam senior team-captain and third baseman Daniel Sokoloski, who went 2 for 2 at the plate and swiped two bases. “We never got down on ourselves, we stuck as a team, we were really positive throughout the whole game and it just went our way,” he said.

“Everyone was out here and getting loud,” said Spilman.

The Hawks had their first chance of securing the final playoff spot when they played Justin-Siena at home on May 10. Tam sent out Larson as their starting pitcher, but he allowed five runs in four innings pitched. Tam only had three hits in the game and they ended up losing to the Braves 7-4. The two teams got into heated verbal exchanges because Justin-Siena pitchers hit a total of eight Tam batters in the game.

“When a team hits 8 of our guys in one ball game, that gets us both fired up and angry,” said Larson. “We were as loud as we have ever been all season in the dugout, and there were times where I thought both dugouts were going to clear onto the field for a brawl.”

Against Drake, Tam sent out junior Matt Davis as their starting pitcher. Davis pitched 4 innings against the Pirates and only gave up three runs (one earned) on one hit, but eight walks allowed by Davis and four errors by the Hawks’ defense allowed Drake an opportunity to score.

“It was obviously really frustrating to not be able to make a couple of routine plays, but at the same time our pitchers kept us in the game,” said Tam junior second baseman Seth Gillis, who went 0 for 1 in the game but reached base on three walks.

Drake pitchers Dylan Feiner and Alec Kenilvort didn’t allow Tam to score an earned run the entire ballgame. Kenilvort, the star starting pitcher for the Pirates with a 0.42 ERA, closed out the game without allowing a hit in the seventh and final inning.

“For us, batting is more valuable because our pitching is usually so consistent so we prevent them from scoring a lot of runs,” said Spilman.

The Hawks varsity team called up sophomore infielder Jonathan Wachtel from the JV team to help their offense get going and he played his first game against San Rafael on April 26. While on JV, Wachtel posted a .477 batting average and a .521 on base percentage. Wachtel had an on base and slugging percentage of 1.157. “Jonny’s been a nice little shot in the arm offensively,” said Coach Terry.

“I was really happy when I was told that I was going to be playing for the varsity team,” said Wachtel. “I’ve been trained to work hard and it looks like it’s been paying off.”

The Hawks were originally scheduled to play the Drake Pirates on May 17 to try and begin their playoff run, but rain delayed the game until May 18. On May 18, the sixth-seeded Hawks played the third-seeded Pirates at Drake in their MCAL quarterfinal matchup. Feiner and Kenilvort once again threw a shutout against the Hawks, but this time Kenilvort started the game while Feiner closed it out. Tam only managed to get four hits on the night and ended up being eliminated in the first round. The Hawks surrendered 10 hits to Drake, resulting in six runs for the Pirates. Drake scored one run in four different innings and also had two runs in the third inning.

“I know we can hit them,” said Wachtel. “We have had some bad outings against [Drake] but I know we can succeed off of them. Drake just came out ready to play immediately out of the gate and won.”

The eleventh seeded Hawks’ short playoff journey came to an end when they lost to sixth seeded Drake Pirates at Drake on May 25, with a final score of 4-3. The Hawks had nine hits in the NCS Division III playoff game and their pitching was good, giving up only three hits, but three errors committed by the Hawks’ defense doomed their chances of a pennant. The Hawks ended their 2011 season with a 0-4 record against Drake.

Written by Rex Chinchilla. This article originally appeared in the June 2011 issue.