Gorge Baseball poses as a team. Pictured are, in the back row, left to right, Jace Greenwood, William Shute, Bryson Sauter, Porter Haskell, Kai Brasuell, Sawyer Muehlbauer and Coach Mike Muehlbauer. In the front row are Deagan Bearden, Christian Guinn, Wyatt Stelma, Jack Vosika and Assistant Coach Chad Meyers.
Gorge Baseball poses as a team. Pictured are, in the back row, left to right, Jace Greenwood, William Shute, Bryson Sauter, Porter Haskell, Kai Brasuell, Sawyer Muehlbauer and Coach Mike Muehlbauer. In the front row are Deagan Bearden, Christian Guinn, Wyatt Stelma, Jack Vosika and Assistant Coach Chad Meyers.
It was mission accomplished for Gorge Baseball and its goal of providing a number of White Salmon-based athletes more time on the diamond this summer.
The team capped its summer season with a 13-7 win on July 29 over La Center followed by an 11-6 loss in the second game of the doubleheader in Vancouver.
The team’s 12-game schedule provided a dozen or so baseball players a chance to work on their skills, as did the twice-a-week practice sessions run by coaches Mike Muehlbauer and Chad Meyers.
“We were supposed to have a few more games but they were canceled for a variety of reasons,” Muehlbauer said. “We got in 12 games and practiced quite a bit — a couple of times a week.
“The overall goal was just to practice and get some games in, but not play all summer.”
Muehlbauer said it’s a constant juggling act to schedule practices and games around family summer schedules. He said a few times this summer the team borrowed players from other Gorge programs to fill out its lineup. But for the most part, the schedule was manned by future Columbia High players. The bulk of the team will be incoming sophomores at CHS this fall, which bodes well for the Bruin program.
Columbia carried seven frosh on its varsity roster this past spring season under Coach Muehlbauer; the Bruins were 7-14 overall and 3-11 in the Trico League.
“All in all, we had our core group there (this summer) and then some of the younger (JV) kids, too,” Muehlbauer said of the roster which included 16 players — never at the same time.
The win over La Center in the first game of last weekend’s doubleheader featured multiple-hit efforts by two of those returning players. Senior-to-be Porter Haskell was 4-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBI. Kai Brasuell, who will be a sophomore at CHS this fall, was 2-for-3, with a triple. He reached base in four of five at-bats and scored each time he did.
Bryson Sauter knocked in two runs with his fifth-inning base hit. Gorge Baseball broke open the game in the sixth when it sent 10 batters to the plate and scored seven runs. In all, the winners had 10 hits and took advantage of seven La Center base-on-balls.
Game two was the flip side of the opener, as La Center earned the five-run win. Gorge Baseball’s Jace Greenwood had two of his team’s seven hits. Sawyer Muehlbauer and Wyatt Stelma, two other of those sophomores-to-be, and Deagan Bearden added hits for Gorge Baseball — as did William Shute and Sauter. Shute and Greenwood were 2022 CHS graduates.
“It took a while to get things going this summer and we could have used a few more games, but it was a success overall,” Muehlbauer said.
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