Baseball: Westerville North Warriors relish run to district title
Moments after the Westerville North baseball team won its first district championship in 34 years, Aiden Dickinson thought about the Warriors’ time inside the school as well as their efforts on the field.
“It’s just something we’ve dreamed of. We’ve brought it up in classroom sessions,” said Dickinson, a junior second baseman and pitcher. “We have a board where we write our goals, and this is the latest one we had to check off. (My teammates) have helped me all the way through.”
Dickinson did his part, going 5-0 on the mound and batting .370 with 30 hits and 21 RBI as North finished 19-9 overall and 11-3 in the OCC-Capital Division, losing 9-2 to 2021 state champion New Albany in a Division I regional semifinal June 3 at Dublin Coffman.
Despite being seeded 15th in the district tournament, the Warriors reached their first regional since 1988 thanks to an offense led by five hitters who batted .308 or better and a pitching staff whose top three members combined for a 14-4 record.
“We had many games where some things went our way and we came out on top,” 12th-year coach Sean Ring said. “What these boys did is something our school hasn’t seen in a long time. It was special for them and special for us, and hopefully the younger guys coming up see what it takes to win.”
North’s postseason run included a 4-3 upset of host and sixth-seeded Olentangy Orange in a district semifinal May 23 and a 3-2 win over 19th-seeded Central Crossing in a district final two days later at Olentangy Liberty.
Junior Lance Preston (OF/P) tripled in the sixth and scored the winning run on a wild pitch against the Comets.
“I’m just so happy that my first thought was winning a district championship for (the seniors), coach Ring, all these guys,” Preston said. “It was about three or four seconds of being excited (after scoring), then I realized we had to get three more outs.”
Senior Trevor Newtz (P/SS) paced the team in several categories, leading in batting average (.422), hits (35), RBI (24), innings pitched (58 2/3) and wins (6) to earn first-team all-league and second-team all-district. He was 6-4 with a 1.43 ERA, 42 strikeouts and 27 walks.
Dickinson, who hit .370 with 30 hits and 21 RBI and was 5-0 with a 1.24 ERA, 25 strikeouts and nine walks in 34 innings, was named first-team all-league and honorable mention all-district. Junior Brock Wright (P/INF) was 3-0 with two saves, 31 strikeouts and seven walks in 33 innings.
Preston batted .325 with 27 hits and 10 RBI, ahead of seniors James McCreery (OF, .310, 26 hits, 12 RBI) and Donovan Varney (OF, .308, 20 hits, 17 RBI).
Junior Braden Lewis (2B), McCreery — a Wittenberg football recruit — and Varney each hit one home run.
McCreery and Varney were second-team all-league, Wright was special mention all-league and senior Connor Warthman (C) was honorable mention all-league.
“We now have a game plan, a script on how we can be successful without a pitcher who throws 90 miles per hour or a multi-home run bat,” Ring said. “How do we want to play baseball, how do we prepare and how do we get to this point? These guys showed us how.”
dpurpura@thisweeknews.com
@ThisWeekDave
NORTH BASEBALL
•Record: 19-9 overall
•OCC-Capital standings: Canal Winchester (14-0), Westerville North (11-3), Worthington Kilbourne (9-5), Dublin Scioto (7-7), Westerville South (7-7), Big Walnut (4-10), Delaware (4-10), Franklin Heights (0-14)
•Seniors lost: Wyatt Buxton, James McCreery, Trevor Newtz, Zac Taylor, Rocco Thomas, Donovan Varney, Connor Warthman and Ethan Weaver
•Key returnees: Braden Lewis, Aiden Dickinson and Lance Preston
•Postseason: Def. Scioto 3-1; def. Olentangy Orange 4-3; def. Central Crossing 3-2; lost to New Albany 9-2 in Division I regional semifinal
This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Baseball: Westerville North relishes run to district title
