The Cheney High baseball team’s season ended this last weekend in the 2A regional playoffs, in Yakima, after they lost to the Ellensburg Bulldogs, 7-0.
Blackhawk batters faced trouble in the form of Ellensburg pitcher Junior Ledgard, who struck out 12 Cheney batters.
Cheney’s defense managed to keep it a scoreless game until the bottom of the fourth where Kyle Hickman hit a single to bring in the first run for the Bulldogs. In that same inning with the bases loaded, Alonso Bibiano hit a three-run triple.
“Ellensburg is a good baseball team,” head coach Mike Cagle said. “They beat Selah 11-1 later that night. But our kids competed that whole game. They represented Cheney well.”
Before regionals, Cheney finished second in the Great Northern League (GNL) playoffs. They ended their regular season with an 11-7 record and tied for second in the GNL standings.
The Blackhawks will be losing nine players to graduation: Sawyer Sims, Nick Kowalski, Josh Arthur, Tanner “Bubba” Smith, Andrew Graham, Kyle Barsness, Kyle Krieger, Tristan Davenport and RC Reed.
Cagle said he was fortunate to be with this group of seniors as they progressed over the years. He was their coach when they were on the freshmen team and then moved up with them to JV.
“I can’t say enough how good these kids are,” Cagle said. “I hated that the season ended because that means I don’t get to practice with them anymore.”
Cheney will have several returning players including Dominic Bonilla, Kyle Jones and Riley Jones.
“We’ve got some young kids coming back who contributed a lot this year,” Cagle said. “We’ll work to stay strong up the middle.”
Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].
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