By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
KEIZER, Ore.–The Regis Baseball team may be a young team on paper, but if they can string it together by the time league starts here in a few weeks, they could possibly make some noise in the 2A/1A Special District 3 conference this year.
The roster itself only has three upperclassmen, and the sophomore’s make-up the bulk of the roster. Seven of them, actually. And they fill in the remainder of the roster with freshmen.
There were some bumps-and-brushes for the Rams Monday night against Horizon Christian of Tualatin as they opened up the 2025 season, trailing the Hawks 8-0 going into the bottom half of the fourth inning. It was just those little things like giving up free bases plagued Regis during the the third and fourth innings coming off a beginning of the game that saw the two squads knotted up at zero going into the third inning.
But then, something clicked for Regis started in the bottom half of the fourth inning. The tide began to turn into their favor.
They scored three times in the bottom of the fourth, and from there, they slowly chipped away. Eventually getting the deficit to 10-8 in the seventh inning and with two outs on the board, they had two runners on and were one good hit away from tying the game up.
“Definitely seeing the fight in them was exciting. They didn’t quit. Being down 8-0 and clawing your way back. It’s 8-4, then 10-6, and next thing you know, you got the tying run at second base in the seventh inning. And then you get a 14-pitch at-bat there to end the game, I was really pleased with these guys. They didn’t quit, and everyone contributed. That tells me that everyone was locked in and contributed to it, so it was really good to see what we had,” said Regis Head Coach Kyle Baker.
It was a taste of what it takes to play at this level. Regis got a taste of knowing what it takes to be successful, too, with that late game rally. Now it’s just a matter of piecing it together for a full seven innings moving forward.
“I think that’s kind of big for us to play against a really good team and get that taste of what it’s like,” said Owen Eaton. “Start of the game, there was no energy in the dugout, and then for some reason when we were down, that’s when we started to pick it up. We had some big knocks. Luke (Castillo) and Korbin (Schumacher) and all the guys, we had a bunch of knocks, and I think that was really important.
“There’s a lot of the little things we can work on, like the pass balls and stuff like that. A lot of those little things, if we can tighten them up, I think we’ll be a force to be reckoned with.”
Eaton drove in two runs and struck out three pitching in two innings. Castillo drove in two runs and had two hits in the game.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
