By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
AURORA, Ore.– Coming off of his Oregon West Conference Player of the Year honors, Stayton’s Mason Silbernagel picked up another major honor to close out his High School Prep CareerL
The Overall MVP of the 4A All-Star Series at North Marion High School on Sunday afternoon.
It capped a three-game series that saw his North squad take the game 9-0 to win the series 2-1.
“It was amazing, it was something that I never really thought I’d accomplish. To come out and do that is amazing,” Silbernagel said. “This season has meant everything to me. Stayton. That team, just the relationships that I have built this season, and the hardships that we went through. Coming up short against Scappoose in that playoff game, for this to have this opportunity to come back and show off my skills and my teammates skills, everyone that’s on this team is amazing.”
Silbernagel got to share the field once more with teammate Oliver Hunt as the ‘Stayton Boys’ showcased what Stayton Baseball was all about one last time.
“Everyone called us ‘The Stayton Boys’, it was awesome because Oliver has been on my team ever since Elementary School and to finish off the year off like this is great,” Silbernagel said of playing with Hunt.
The Stayton Duo were just part of a heavy-Oregon West Conference presence on the North team. Besides Hunt and Silbernagel, you had the OWC Pitcher of the Year in Caleb Babcock (Philomath), OWC Second Team Pitcher in Ryder Hockema (Newport) and OWC First Team Pitcher in Slade Hudson (Cascade) on their roster going up against the South squad this past weekend.
Hudson became the first Cougar player to play in the All-Star series since Jamien Whelden when Whelden graduated and played in the game back in 2024. And the work he put in this year, being the Cougars ace and helping lead them to a 11-15 season and 10-5 in OWC Play.
“It was big time this year, the team was really focused. We all were doing pretty well, but to represent the seniors, to represent Cascade, it was great to do,” said Hudson, who will be heading to Chemeketa in the Fall to play baseball. “I got the uniform back from (Head Coach Justin) Tow and it brought back a bunch of memories from the season and our last player to do this was Jamien. So it was nice to piggy-back off him, I talked to him and he gave me a lot of intel on this. It was really fun to be a part of it to represent Cascade.”
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
