Pitching in: Kellogg mound staff key to Wildcats' first state tourney appearance

By JOSH McDONALD

Staff writer

A sigh of relief and moment to reflect …

That was Kellogg High baseball coach Nate Whatcott in the moments following his fourth-seeded Wildcats’ win over Grangeville in the 2A District 1-2 tournament’s second-place game last week in Orofino.

The Wildcats, who dropped from 3A to 2A this year, were a breath away from the state tournament a year ago — they had to wait 12 more months, but Kellogg can finally say it has qualified for a state tournament in baseball.

It wasn’t without its share of challenges.

The long winter months made home games a near impossibility until the final weeks of the season.

Injuries and player availability made fielding the Wildcats' best lineup difficult.

And when it came time for the district tournament — all of those issues forced them into the most difficult route possible.

“It's been a real challenging year,” Whatcott said. “Due to injuries and other factors, we were only made up of six full-time varsity players. We had to do our best to make a competitive team with six JV floaters. Thankfully they were a great group of kids who worked their butts off to make it come together at the right time.”

The strength of the Wildcats rests solely in their ability to control games with their pitching — when that’s rolling, Whatcott believes his team will be one of the toughest on the field – he has coached all across the country and is very much a strategist when it comes to making sure his matchups give his team their best competitive edge.

The district tournament forced him to make sure that his best pitchers would be available when they were needed most, and those decisions paid off.

“We had to be real strategic with our use of pitchers,” Whatcott said. “We had to save all three of our starting pitchers for day two, so we pitched three mid-relief guys on Tuesday (day one) against Priest River. Kolby Luna, Austin Clapper and Preston Graaskamp were able to keep the Priest River hitters off balance and our hitting was enough to beat them without using any of our starters.”

This allowed the ‘Cats to walk into day two with Travis Eixenberger, Riply Luna, and Logan Smith ready to go.

Eixenberger, a junior, has pitched in several big games in his three years at the varsity level — and he pitched well against Orofino, giving up just two earned runs, but Kellogg errors resulted in a 9-2 loss that didn’t mirror his efforts.

“We knew that they would be a tough game,” Whatcott said. ”But Travis has had a lot of success against their hitters.”

Smith carved up the St. Maries Lumberjacks in the loser-out game, which led to the matchup with Grangeville.

“We had lost two of three previously to Grangeville, in which we were no-hit in one of those games,” Whatcott said. “They are a very disciplined hitting team, but we planned for this and had one of our strongest starting pitchers in Rip (Riply Luna), on the mound.”

Luna made it into the seventh inning before reaching his pitch count limit — giving up four runs while striking out 10.

Then the game headed into extra innings — the exact place Kellogg lost its play-in game a year prior.

Kellogg had to lean on relief pitchers Kolby Luna and Reed Whatcott to hold off a Grangeville rally — it was also a three-RBI hit from Kolby that pushed the Wildcats safely ahead for the win.

Now, Whatcott and his crew are looking ahead.

The 2A state tournament is being hosted in Orofino, so it’s familiar territory in a completely unfamiliar environment for the Wildcats.

Kellogg will open up the state tournament with a matchup with the South East Idaho Conference champions from Malad, scheduled for Thursday at 5 p.m.

The Dragons share a common opponent with the Wildcats, beating Grangeville 3-2 back on April 14.

But Whatcott, a Kellogg High graduate, isn’t worried about that right now.

He knows what his team is capable of and he knows that they’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a long time.

Not as long as he has though.

“I’ve been waiting for this since 1991,” Whatcott said. “I’m just so proud of these guys. The competition is going to be tough, but anything can happen in a three-day tournament when you have the pitching depth of the Wildcats."