Wilsonville and Silverton faced off in the first round of the 5A baseball playoffs on Wednesday, with Wilsonville coming out on top with a 3-0 victory. Wilsonville came into the matchup as the #2 seed in the tournament while Silverton– the underdog– had to make the trip all the way to Wilsonville as the #15 seed.

Wilsonville held down Silverton in the top of the first, and in the bottom half of the inning, the top of Wilsonville’s order exploded for 3 runs. The next 6 innings was a pitchers duel between Wilsonville ace Keenan Sanford and Silverton starter Robert Brockamp. Both pitchers did their job and held down the opposing offense to no runs after the first inning.

The Wilsonville offense struggled over the final 6 innings of the game, and when asked about how they will improve in the next round, Keenan Sanford replied “we need to be more disciplined at the plate and focus on hitting line drives.” Multiple times Silverton threatened with runners in scoring position but each time Sanford weaseled his way out of trouble.

Multiple great defensive plays from Mathew Gomez and Cole Hubka kept the shutout intact as Keenan Sanford threw a complete game shut out. This advances Wilsonville to the second round to take on Putnam. Hubka said about the defense against Silverton: “we got a lot of ground balls made all our plays in the field and really helped out our pitcher.”

Wilsonville and Putnam played each other earlier in the year, and Wilsonville took two of the three games against the Kingsman. Wilsonville and Putnam are bitter rivals in the NWOC and their final match of the year takes place on Friday May 27th at Wilsonville. The winner will go to the semifinals as both squads try to keep the dream of a state title alive.