McQuinn’s walk off pushes No. 3 Huskies past No. 6 Tigers, win 7-6
The boys varsity baseball team won in walk off fashion on May 14 at the DAC, by defeating Blue Valley, 7-6. The walk off was senior Tyler McQuinn’s first and only hit on the night, as the win improves BVNW’s record to 15-6.
May 15, 2019
Trailing by one with two strikes, two outs, no one on base and senior Ryan Freiermuth at the plate, the Huskies found themselves with their backs against the wall and their season on the line. Freiermuth had hit well up until that point compared to his other BVNW counterparts, going 2 for 3 with an RBI and a run scored. Having known Blue Valley was testing the Huskies with fast balls all game, Freiermuth said he just needed to pick his pitch and drive it.
“I knew they were coming in with some heat,” Freiermuth said. “I’ve been waiting for that this whole year. I just thought I just need to get my pitch and drive the ball far.”
On possibly the Huskies’ last strike of the season, he did exactly that. In the events that followed, the senior left fielder stroked the ball to deep left center giving himself enough time to round all the bases, scoring an inside the park home run and tying the game up in the bottom of the seventh. Having previously hit a triple in the bottom of the first, Freiermuth said he wasn’t stopping this time around.
“Once I rounded second, all I knew was that I was going home,” Freiermuth said. “I’m going to score this bag [and] I wasn’t going to stop for nothing.”
Now level with the Tigers at 6-6, the Huskies kept on rolling. A single by junior Ryan Callahan and a walk by senior Sean Roseborough set senior Tyler McQuinn up with two runners on and a chance to win the game. Despite being 0 for 2 with 2 strikeouts and a walk, McQuinn was able to drop a single down into shallow right field, scoring junior Nick Marker from second, who was inserted in to pinch run for Callahan. After producing the walk off in the regional championship game, McQuinn said he lost all sense as Marker crossed home plate.
“I just kind of lost it,” McQuinn said. “It was amazing”
Doubling as the starting pitcher for the Huskies and giving up 5 runs in 4 ⅓ innings, McQuinn said it was refreshing to come through for his team when needed and return them to state.
For the third straight year, the Huskies are back in the 6A state baseball competition. In spite of a coaching change heading into this year, first year coach Jade Samborski was able to capture the prosperity of the BVNW baseball program’s past.
Commenting on whether he expected to experience this type of success so early in his tenure at Northwest, Samborski said although not always measured in wins, his team’s fighting spirit was evident tonight.
“The expectation was that I wanted to keep this program going at the height that it was,” Samborski said. “Success was going to come from continuing that and that family atmosphere. It showed tonight.”
In addition to the walk off, the win was memorable for the Huskies as they were able to enact their revenge on the Tigers, who defeated them in last years 6A state championship, 1-0.
With booking their ticket to the 2019 6A state championships, Blue Valley Northwest will play again next week, once all of the other regionals are concluded and the bracket announced.
