High school baseball: West Albany's 'brotherhood' sticks together following state title loss to Thurston (2024)

All year, West Albany baseball has thought about getting back to this stage and getting over the hump. Making it to the state title game was only part of the battle.

The Bulldogs accomplished that part. Unfortunately, they couldn’t reverse their fortune this time around. And a Colt by the name of Grady Saunders had a big hand in that result again.

For the second year in a row, Thurston got the better of West Albany, as the Colts hung on to win the OSAA 5A state championship with a 2-0 victory Saturday.

Both runs for the Colts came in the first inning, as the opening frame encapsulated this game.

West Albany got two runners on in the first, but a double play left them stranded. Thurston got two runners on in the bottom half, and they found their way home. A sac-fly from Eli Crist and an RBI single by Saunders gave the Colts an early 2-0 lead, and nothing changed after that.

Saunders, who hit the walk-off inside-the-park home run to win the state title last year, was the starter on the mound for Thurston and didn’t allow West Albany to get any big hits. The Bulldogs had good at-bats, drew walks, but couldn’t do anything with them.

“We just didn’t come up with hits in spots we needed to,” West Albany coach Marty Johnston said. “We did a great job of forcing him to get his pitch count up. … We had a good approach at the plate. Guys were taking good pitches. We just didn’t get the key hits in the right spots that we needed to.”

Saunders went 6⅓ innings, throwing 111 pitches. He walked four batters and plunked three, but West Albany could only muster up three hits in the game.

“Against good teams you’re only going to get so many opportunities,” Johnston said. “Against a good pitcher like Saunders, you have to take advantage of the opportunities that you get. Because they’re paramount. They really are. Credit to those guys and Saunders, they were able to find ways to get us out in tough spots. That’s the difference in these games with two really good teams.”

Lukas Hews kept West Albany in it on the mound, settling down nicely after the first inning. He went six innings, striking out five while giving up five hits and the two runs.

He got better as the game went along, getting his team back in the dugout quickly. He only threw 77 pitches.

“That’s just the way that Lukas has thrown all year,” Johnston said. “Really embracing a starter’s mentality this season. To watch his growth in that role this year, I’m so proud of what he developed and emerged into. Today was no different than any one of his starts.”

Drew Rice, who has pitched extremely well all year for the Bulldogs, made his way to the bullpen at one point late, but it was Hews’ mound all game and he did the job the coaches asked of him.

“We had confidence that we had Hughes and Rice both ready,” Johnston said. “If we tied it up Drew was coming in to close it. It’s really great, we had confidence in both of those guys coming in and we knew that they would keep it close for us.”

Hews got a strikeout to end the sixth, and he exited the mound fired up. It showed that even when they were down, the Bulldogs weren’t ready to call it quits.

“These are the types of games we played all year,” Johnston said. “We’ve had all of our playoff games be tight games. These guys are comfortable in uncomfortable situations. I had no doubt. Going into the sixth I told them ‘These are the types of games we’re comfortable playing in. We are in these types of games all the time.’”

West Albany couldn’t find that last hit, and Thurston celebrated following a foul out, piling on top of Crist, who got the final two outs.

After the celebration and medal presentation, Johnston hugged each one of his players and got the team together for one last huddle.

The message?

“Told them I love them,” Johnston said. “I just love the way they came together. They had a goal themselves and they were determined to get back there.”

One of the best things about this group, according to Johnston, was that all year it wasn’t just one or two guys leading the way. It was a team effort.

“We don’t have a lot of guys that are going to jump off the page stat-wise. We just have really good solid athletes that play for each other,” Johnston said. “The thing I told them that I will remember most about this team is the way they came together and played for each other. And to watch that emerge and develop over the course of the season was special because not all teams are capable of doing that.”

That coming together wasn’t just reserved for their play on the field. Johnston said that he had a “tough personal issue” come up around the first game of the postseason last year. His team lifted him up, and he couldn’t help but think about that during this postseason run.

“This group of seniors were there and helped me through it,” Johnston said. “And going through this year, bringing that thought back a little bit. They’re special with their ability to come together and truly be a brotherhood and play together as a family.”

There are a good handful of seniors on this squad — Mason Linton, Aiden Metzker, Cam Garrett, Andrew Yost, Zackary Ferguson, Sawyer Kasten, Owen Jacques and Hews.

Many of them joined varsity after a first-round exit from the postseason in 2022. This group then rattled off two straight state title game appearances, and even if they came up just short of the ultimate goal, it's been a historic run for the program.

“They’re special. They’re just a special group,” Johnston said. “... There’s not too many classes that have been able to accomplish what they did at West Albany. Super proud of them.”

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