The Timberwolf Youth Baseball team has spent the last few months collecting quite a few trophies, and that continued until the end of the season in July.
The team is made up of 8-10-year-olds and competes as part of Junior Baseball of Oregon, and the Timberwolves wrapped up a strong season with a second-place finish at the state tournament.
The season started in March, and the team went 33-9 throughout the season. They entered two regular-season tournaments and won both, the Nelson Minor American Tournament around Mother’s Day and the Sherwood Invitational Tournament right around Father’s Day.
The path to the state tournament wasn’t an easy one. The Timberwolves qualified for a play-in game for the Clackamas County Tournament in a play-in game to earn an eight seed. The top eight teams out of 26 qualified for the county tournament in Milwaukie.
Tualatin opened the county tournament by knocking off the No. 1 seed in the opening game. The boys lost their second game to put them in the losers’ bracket, where they beat the No. 2 seed in the tournament and then knocked out the No. 1 seed, as it was a double elimination tournament.
The Timberwolves took third place in the county tournament, good enough to qualify for the state tournament in Gaston.
They opened the state tournament with an offensive onslaught, scoring 19 runs in the win. Tualatin then ran into league rival Gladstone, which beat them in the county tournament, and Gladstone again picked up the win.
This was also a double-elimination tournament, so Tualatin headed back to the losers’ bracket. The Timberwolves picked up a win to bounce back and then won in extra innings to set up a rematch with Gladstone for a place in the championship game.
This time Tualatin picked up the win in walk-off fashion, beating Gladstone, 12-11.
The Timberwolves narrowly dropped the state title game, 10-9, to Mt. Angel to earn their second-place finish.
