Wildcats’ comeback season ends in playoff heartbreak

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Tears flowed in the Wildcats’ dugout as fans filtered out of the bleachers. Players and coaches embraced on the field.

“I feel like we let one get away from us,” head coach Cody Anderson confessed post-game. “I look back — we should have won. But the kids fought hard and played hard.”

Thursday’s postseason loss to the visiting Marysville-Getchell Chargers meant heartbreak for the Wildcats, who slogged through a 1-8 start to the regular season before eventually making the playoffs.

On Thursday, Senior Trevor Sadler pitched six innings and outlasted the Chargers’ starter, whose loss of command spelled his early relief. When the Wildcats found themselves down by three runs in the bottom of the sixth, hitters batted in four runs on two outs to seize a 5-4 lead.

But the Chargers’ relentlessness, and poor base running on the Wildcats’ part, cost the home team a playoff game once thought unlikely.

“They were going to be scrappy. They were going to play hard,” Anderson said. “And they were going to put the ball in play and do everything they could to win the game.”

Despite coming to an untimely end, Oak Harbor High School’s varsity baseball team had the kind of comeback season that should create buzz around the program.

Inexperience in crucial positions “down the middle” of the field — behind the plate, on the mound, at shortstop and out in center field — made the Wildcats weak defensively to start the season, Crawford explained. Errors were frequent, and it felt as though winning required a perfect performance.

“We had a lot of people on the field that had never played varsity sports before, and they didn’t quite understand what it was like at the beginning,” Anderson recalled. “So, it was a crash course in varsity athletics for quite a few of our players.”

Sadler recalled a losing mentality affecting the team; giving up just a few runs felt catastrophic.

“It’s very hard to lose games and to keep spirits high. Nobody at this level is not competitive,” the assistant coach said. “You do absolutely everything you can to try to keep them intact and keep them motivated.”

Crawford explained that the coaching staff implemented adjustments incrementally in the hopes of improving. All three men agreed that delivering Lynden Christian its first loss on April 7 became the turning point of the season. Beating the Lions 10-4 proved to Oak Harbor it could compete.

Including two wins preceding victory over Lynden Christian, the Wildcats finished the regular season 8-3 overall.

“(Players’) confidence improved dramatically after that, because we faced a really good pitcher for Lynden Christian, and that was probably our best game at the plate hit-wise all season,” the head coach said.

Thursday’s loss eliminated Oak Harbor from the playoffs, but preparation for next season begins as early as Thanksgiving. Anderson explained that mitigating the loss of seven graduating seniors means “getting bigger, faster, stronger” in the weight room, among other things.

Three departing seniors plan to play collegiate baseball: Sadler, Tristin Hamblin and David Smith III.

Around 14 Oak Harbor High School alums have gone on to play baseball in college, according to Crawford and Anderson, including Noah Meffert, a redshirt senior playing for Gonzaga University. Meffert is batting .317 in 48 games this season with the Bulldogs.

Despite the talent the program is producing, fewer players are trying out for the high school’s baseball teams than in the past.

“When I first took over, we had around 60 kids at tryouts,” Anderson, who has coached varsity for the last decade, said. “We’re lucky to get 30 to 35 right now.”

A college baseball alum hailing from Texas, Anderson thinks having the Navy in Oak Harbor affects its high school baseball culture, at least in part because of the challenges to fielding a team it presents. Talented players with military parents may move away in the middle of their high school careers.

Winning under these circumstances is “tougher” and “more meaningful,” Anderson said.

Crawford believes investing in baseball locally at the youth level and increasing the high school program’s visibility could create more interest in Wildcats baseball, ideally bringing in more players to try out.

“We want people to be excited about Oak Harbor baseball,” Crawford said. “I want people to be excited about the future of it.”