Shorewood baseball begins district tournament versus Shorecrest

After finishing the regular season 18-2 (including a perfect 14-0 against Wesco opponents) the Shorewood Thunderbirds baseball team begins their trek back to the state championships against a familiar foe -- cross-town rivals Shorecrest.

The Thunderbirds and the Scots kick off the 3A District 1 baseball tournament tomorrow, Sat. May 7 at 1 p.m. at Shorewood High School. Shorewood is the top seed in the tournament, while Shorecrest just made it into postseason play with a record of 5-8 in league and 9-12 overall. In their two contests this season Shorewood won both games, besting the Scots by a combined score of 19-1.

Shorewood head coach Wyatt Tonkin has been busy keeping his players focused on their opponents, ones not to be taken lightly in a playoff atmosphere even in light of recent drubbings.

“I’ve been telling my kids we get to start off with our arch-rivals and once we get into the playoffs there’s no looking past anybody,” Coach Tonkin said. “Everybody’s dangerous.”

No one on either team is more dangerous than Shorewood first baseman Trevor Mitsui, a 6’4’’ senior who has accepted a scholarship offer to play for the University of Washington next year. Mitsui had a monster regular season, batting .674 with 10 home runs and an absurd .823 on-base percentage. A big reason for his high OBP -- and his relatively meager 20 runs batted in -- is that he is walked constantly by other teams trying to neutralize his game-changing potential.

Mitsui obviously hopes this trend will change in the postseason.

“I’m hoping they pitch to me,” he said at Friday’s practice. “But if they don’t our whole team is going to have to hit.”

It’s something the Thunderbirds have been forced to do all season, batting Mitsui lead-off to provide some protection and then letting junior catcher Duncan Hendrickson and senior pitcher and infielder Connor Mckeever drive him in. Hendrickson batted .431 with 17 RBI and Mckeever drove in 18 runs; Mitsui touched home plate a whopping 30 times this season.

While other players would be boiling over with frustration at getting so few chances to swing the bat, Mitsui has stayed positive and focused on helping the team.

“He’s shown a lot of maturity, a lot of class, a lot of integrity,” Coach Tonkin said. “They walk him, he’s been very patient with that: ‘Hey, they get me on base, I can score.’”

In the fierce playoff atmosphere where runs can be hard to come by, the Thunderbirds have been practicing small ball of late to use Mitsui’s free passes to their advantage.

“We worked on our small ball and our bunting, and our base stealing and base running, and we worked a good solid half-hour on giving up your at-bat to get that run in with a man on 3rd base and less than 2 outs,” Tonkin said. “I’m thinking that games are going to be a lot closer than people think.”

Whether today’s match will require finesse baseball remains to be seen, but Tonkin has his squad prepared for anything, a lesson learned from last season’s unexpected run to a 4th-place finish in state.

“[Last year] a lot of people looked past us and we can’t afford to do that,” he said. “We need to play mistake-free baseball on defense, keep our walks to a minimum, and force them to beat us by beating our pitching.

“Our goal is to score 1 run an inning. If we can do that, I think we can be successful.”

Success may depend on reaching their goal one base at a time.