The first round of this years OSAA 6A baseball state playoffs started with a bang when the 6-seed Oregon City Pioneers nocked off the Mt. Hood Conference Champions the Central Catholic Rams 5-3.

It looked like the Rams were going to walk away with a victory when they turned on the offense right off the bat and scored 3-runs in the bottom of the 1^st-inning including a homerun by Rams Pitcher Codi Scanlon to get the scoring started.

However, the Pioneers settled and held the Rams scoreless for the final 6-innings of the game.

“I have to admit the home run got to me” Pioneers pitcher Rilyn Lewchuk said “but I didn’t show it.”

Lewchuk had a solid game striking out 8-batters giving up only 8-hits to the Rams and walked 0-batters the entire game.

Lewchuck also had solid backing from his offence which started to heat up in the 3^rd-inning when the Pioneers got 2-hits and a run from senior catcher Jon Reece off of a sac-fly.

“The last couple of games we have started scoring late in the game” Lewchuck commented “so I was just waiting for that to happen.”

The Pioneers scored a run in the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th-innings to tie the game at 3-runs apiece and had an offensive explosion in the 7^th-inning scoring 2-runs to put the game out of reach of the Rams.

The offense was led by Reece who batted 3-for-4 and scored 2-runs for the Pioneers.

“I came in hyped because it was my last season” Reece said about his performance “I was ready to play.”

The rest of the Pioneers were ready to play as well managing to rack up 12-hits off of Scanlon and the Rams defense.

Offensively Central Catholic looked to miss their star lead off hitter senior Lucas Hunter who was out of the game with a dislocated shoulder.

Hunter was replaced by senior Kevin Matheny in the lead off spot however Matheny was never able to get going and batted 0-for-4 for the game.

The loss knocks the Rams out of the playoffs and moves the Pioneers into the second-round to face the McNary Celtics at Lake Oswego.

The Celtics moved into the second round with an 11-7 win over the Pacific Conference Champions the Tualatin Timberwolves.

- Jesse James NWPreps.net