Benny Westcott
Sweet Home’s baseball team wrapped an abbreviated 2021 spring season at 7-8 overall and 5-7 in league for a fifth-place finish in Oregon West Conference (OWC) play. (Ahead of Sweet Home stood Stayton (9-6, 9-3), Philomath (9-8, 8-4), Sisters (8-5, 8-4), and Newport (7-5, 7-5).)
Head Coach John Best can see the Huskies rising in the standings this year, although he expects that every team will have improved.
“We play in a very tough conference. A lot of the Oregon West has some pretty good baseball,” he said. “But I think Sweet Home will have a really good year and I’m optimistic that we are in the running. I’m excited to see what kind of team we are going to have. We are going to compete, for sure.”
The team graduated five seniors after last season, including all league first team utility player Dawson Armstrong. But it returns all state third team and all conference first team pitcher Russell Holly for his senior year. Last season, Holly went 2-for-3 with a 1.23 ERA from the mound, recording 45 strikeouts and 11 walks in his 39.2 innings.
“I’m expecting that he will have a really great year pitching,” Best said.
Statistically speaking, Holly might also be the best Husky performer with a bat; his .333 average, 13 hits, three doubles and seven RBIs last season are tops among returners. His younger brother, sophomore first baseman and pitcher Jon “Huston” Holly, is on track to wield Sweet Home’s second most productive bat. Last year, he averaged .323 with 10 hits, two doubles, one triple, one home run and eight RBIs.
Junior infielder Casey Valloni has the third best offensive statistics of returning players, batting .250 last season with nine hits, one triple, one home run and nine RBIs.
Best expects sophomore Nathan Aker to be his No. 2 pitcher. As a freshman, he went 11.1 innings, going 2-0 with a 4.90 ERA, recording 14 strikeouts and seven walks. The No. 3 spot is up for grabs between five candidates: senior Tucker Weld (who sometimes pitched for the varsity team last year), juniors Lewis Conn, Jacob Sieminski and Hunter Ashby, and the younger Holly, who also pitched at the varsity level last season.
“We have a decent amount of experience. I’m hoping that we’ll be pretty good.
“We’ve been practicing really well and seeing a lot of real positives,” Best said. “On offense I think we are going to be good. We’ll score runs. We have team speed and run the bases well. I don’t know if we will have a ton of guys that will hit the long ball, but we’ll be a competitive offensive team.”
Seniors Alex Kisselburgh and Josh Wilson and juniors Kaden Zajic, Dylan Luttmer and Caleb Christman round out the varsity roster. Best, Dan Tow, Dawson Armstrong and Zach Luttmer all coach the squad.
The Huskies’ junior varsity team consists of juniors Chris Christman, Christian Dominy, Daniel Goodwin, Tyler Seth, and Austyn Wray; sophomores Taiden Burger, Ethan Delibertis, Kelso Ellis, Gavin Grabeel, Kayden Gutierrez, Brad Marks, Vegas Mauer and David Steagall; and freshman Ashton Swanson. Mike Carpenter is its coach.
Sweet Home’s junior varsity 2 team includes sophomores Case Miller, Mason Montigue and Robbie Strome-Greer; and freshmen Josh Aker, Jason Funk, Talon Graber, Tison Monohan, Laird Pettner, Kenneth Sanders, Beau Snyder and Nathan Thompson. Amos Burger and Clifford Dominy oversee the team.
Sweet Home opens the season at home against Molalla at 4:30 p.m. Monday, March 14, followed by another home game against Elmira/Triangle Lake at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 15.