CHS finishes season with eight-game losing streak

The Bruins, guided by Coach Mike Muehlbauer and assistant coach Chad Myers, lost a doubleheader, 10-0 and 6-2, to the King’s Way Christian High Knights (9-5 league, 10-9 overall) on May 2 in Vancouver. The Bruins followed with a season-ending, 7-4, home loss to the Knights on May 5 on senior night at Columbia High School in White Salmon.

“We actually had multiple hits in Friday’s game and so it was probably one of our best offensive performances this season and we played pretty good defense, too,” said Myers, a 13-year Bruin assistant coach. “Our starting pitcher, Bryson Sauter, played very well, and he had some good innings, and he made some good plays. Wesley White came in to relieve Bryson and he pitched pretty well, too.

“With the weather in the Gorge this year, it was hard to get on the field for the first month of the season. We usually had to practice in the gym and that makes it hard to get into a groove of playing on the field.”

Muehlbauer said, “We played one of our best games of the season on Friday against them (Knights). We hit the ball well (seven hits) and we had pretty solid pitching, but we just came up short. Overall, it was a pretty frustrating season. We had a few games that were fun when we won. There was a big disparity between some of the teams in our league and that was weird. Some of the games that we won against Stevenson and Castle Rock were nice to win, but they really were not very satisfying victories.”

Seniors Porter Haskell and Sauter were honored for their contributions to the Bruins’ baseball program in a pregame ceremony Friday while accompanied by their parents.

“Bryson started in his last game, and he really pitched a solid game which was good to see, then we took him out after he threw 102 pitches,” said Muehlbauer. “We did pretty well with him out there and we were keeping the scoring down. It was nice to see him, Bryson, and Porter play so well in their final game. They were the mainstays of our team, especially Bryson, who played great as shortstop as well as being our top pitcher. As our first baseman, Porter (6-foot-9) is such a big target, and he saved a lot of off-target throws that could’ve been over somebody else’s head. He helped reduce our errors by quite a bit and we’ll miss him and Bryson, who were both good team leaders.”