The Akron-Westfield baseball team has been ranked at the top of the state most of the season, and they will get to prove why with a trip to the state tournament. The Westerners defeated Kingsley-Pierson 13-0 in five innings to advance to the program’s second-ever state tournament and first since 2017.
The Westerner baseball team has a host of seniors that have seen plenty of baseball with each other. Some guys were starting as eighth graders and have been able to bring the program up from the depths with a 5-10 record in 2020. Head coach Gordon Johnson says the guys put in their time and are going to reap the rewards over the next week and a half.
One of those seniors is Kasey Nielsen who drove in two runs with a double in the game. He says the senior class has been blessed to be playing with some younger teammates too.
The struggles the senior class was not just attached to the baseball diamond. Many are multi-sport athletes who play football and basketball too. Nielsen says the group got tighter together having a great foundation at the start of the school year.
The game at hand saw Nathan Gaswint shine bright on the mound. The long lanky sophomore through five nearly perfect innings allowing just a hit, a walk, and striking out 11. Gaswint says he could physically feel that something big was happening throughout the game.
Coach Johnson says when Gaswint is hitting locations, the opposing team is in trouble.
Gaswint attributes his stellar sophomore season to work put in during the offseason. He says he was able to find a little extra power behind his pitches to increase his velocity.
The game was pretty easy for guys like Hayden Wahlberg in the field who did not even see a ball in play hit to him. He says his confidence in Gaswint is extremely high.
The Westerners just could not be stopped either on the mound or at the plate. Akron-Westfield put together a pair of five-run innings in the second and third and tacked on three more in the fourth for good measure. Five different guys drove in two-or-more runs in the win. Wahlberg says it is big that the guys do not ever become complacent with just one or two runs in an inning. They are always hungry for more.
Nielsen says the depth of this team 1-9 in the order makes them a scary team to face.
Coach Johnson says even the at-bats that had a bad outcome were good when it came to guys who continued to battle at the plate.
The Westerners will now go to the state tournament as the top seed overall. The target will be massive on the back of Akron-Westfield, and they know that will be the case. Coach Johnson says the guys are expecting to prove that the top seed is deserved, and they are going to have to take advantage of the next few days of practice to get that done.
Akron-Westfield will take a 27-3 record into next week’s state tournament.
