by Jackson Hongtong ’21

 The Warriors suffered a 4-3 loss to Urbana in the third round of the playoffs in a close extra-inning game. The eighth inning went scoreless but in the ninth, a passed ball allowed Urbana’s runner on third to go home.

 “We played our hearts out but unfortunately we couldn’t come out on top,” said freshman Jake Becker, who had two quality hits in the game.

 Urbana took an early 1-0 lead in the top of the second inning, before both teams scored a pair of runs in the fifth inning and the Warriors tied up the game in the sixth. The seventh and final inning was a good defensive inning for Sherwood, allowing no runs. That was followed-up with a near home run by junior Michael Bouma that instead led to an out. Urbana went on to win the tightly contested game before losing to Howard 11-10 in the Regional Final.

 After earning a first round bye, the Warriors beat Paint Branch in their first playoff game in extra innings, 3-2. Paint Branch scored the first run in the second and the Warriors came back with a run in the fourth. Both teams scored in the sixth inning, and the Warriors finally scored to take the game after two extra innings.

 The Warriors dominated in the regular season, with a record of 18-1, including six shutouts. The team scored a phenomenal 175 runs while only allowing 39 total runs in the regular season. The boys were also ranked number three in the DMV on the Washington Post’s top-10 high school baseball rankings in the area as of May 14 and stayed in the top five for the majority of the season.

 The team was outstanding on paper, with a team batting average of .332 and a fielding percentage of .948 throughout the season. The team also stole 50 bases in their 19 games.

 Bouma, who hit four of the team’s eight home runs during the regular season, recently verbally committed to the University of Maryland to pursue his career in baseball. “It feels great,” said Bouma. “I’m super excited because it was my dream school, and I’ve wanted to go there since I was a kid.”

 Highlights of the season include beating reigning State Champions’ Poolesville by a score of 5-2 on April 5. The Warriors 13-game winning streak eventually was snapped at home by Rockville, 4-1, on April 26 for their only loss of the regular season.

 “The main reason [why the team was successful] is because we have such good team chemistry; we all love each other and we have each other’s back. We are all brothers,” said Bouma.

 The team could be even better next year, considering most of the core players of team are juniors and sophomores with only three graduating seniors. Expect a more experienced Sherwood varsity baseball team in 2019 to carry its regular-season success to a longer playoff run.