Albany High Baseball Team Ends Season on Sour Note

The boys' baseball team had in the Division III North Coast playoffs this year after easing through the Bay Shore Athletic League.

However, an ill-timed offensive slump proved costly for the Cougars as their season came to an abrupt end on a disappointing two-game losing skid.

After sailing through the BSAL play with a 15-1 record, the Cougars were the top seed in the league playoffs, but lost to St. Joseph 7-3.

The fourth-seed Pilots shocked the top-ranked Cougars with a 12-hit attack, while Albany could only get seven hits and committed three errors in the field.

(2-for-4) and (3-for-4) had five of the Cougars' seven hits in the game. Yoshi Uemura, Paulie Kennedy and Elijah Sudduth all drove in runs in the loss.

Despite losing, Albany was given the fifth seed in the playoffs based on their 18-6 overall record. That landed them a first-round game against 12th seed Novato but, again, a lack of offense doomed the Cougars.

Albany got just six hits and managed only one run in an 8-1 loss.

Daniel Supple, who started the game off as the pitcher, was the hitting star, with a single and double. Kennedy, Uemura, Sudduth and Patrick Xu had the other hits for Albany.

“We hit some shots, they just went right to people,” Albany coach Jim Giblin said. “The difference in the playoff games was they weren’t falling like they did during the season. It seems to even out.”

Supple pitched three innings, giving up a pair of runs as Albany trailed just 2-0 into the fifth before surrendering five runs in the sixth inning.

Schumacher came in to pitch in relief of Ryan Masterson, and pitched well for the final two innings.

Despite the quick exit, the Cougars' season was deemed a success based on a strong win/loss record that had some great individual performances.

Stats put on the Max Preps website by Albany scorekeepers showed Schumacher and Xu hit .424 and .418 respectively, and Babitt hit .392. The pitching stats showed Masterson with a 6-2 record, and Supple close behind at 5-2.

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