The Astoria Ford Fishermen will go for their third consecutive Oregon Junior Baseball Association Division I championship this week without their most heralded player.
All-state outfielder and number one pitcher Jordan Poyer played his last game of the summer for the Fishermen on Friday and gave a preview of the type of dominance that may be on display in his senior year.
Poyer mowed through the Reynolds Raiders lineup, tossing a 5-inning one-hitter with 11 strikeouts as Astoria defeated the Raiders 12-1 in the opening game of their 3-game regional playoff series.
The Fishermen won the second game of the doubleheader 7-0 Friday night to clinch the berth to state.
Poyer will be unavailable this week as he attends the Top Gun Challenge Championship for quarterbacks in Jenks, Oklahoma. Poyer earned the trip to the competition in the Tulsa suburb by tying for second in a Portland competition featuring some of the top quarterbacks in the state. Brett Widing of Canby was the top placer and also will attend the Challenge Championship, which will feature top high school quarterbacks from nine different states.
If Poyer's recent football experiences have been a distraction from baseball, it sure didn't show on the mound Friday night. The hard-throwing righthander simply overpowered the Reynolds lineup, which admittedly featured players who will suit up on the 6A Mount Hood Conference school's junior varsity team next spring.
The only hit of the game for Reynolds was a solo home run off the bat of centerfielder Joe Scarpelli, one of only three sophomores on the primarily freshman team.
Only one other ball left the infield as Poyer struck out at least two batters in four of the five innings, including eight of the first nine batters he faced.
After Marc Gallegos stole home in the first inning to get Astoria on the board, the Fishermen put together a colossal 2-out rally in the second inning, scoring nine runs to blow the game open.
Dane Lund hit a 2-run homer in the third inning, one of five extra base hits for the Fishermen in the rout. Poyer contributed a bases-clearing double in the second inning and Gallegos, who went 2-for-2 with three runs scored in the game, added a 2-run double as 13 Fishermen batters came to the plate in the inning.
Astoria used another big inning to score all of its runs in the second game, scoring seven times in the fourth inning. Astoria had six of its eight hits in that inning, including a bases-clearing double by Gallegos, who went 4-for-6 in the doubleheader with five RBI.
Taylor Landwehr threw six innings of 2-hit shutout ball and Zach Dursse closed with a scoreless seventh inning, allowing one hit. Astoria finished the game with with its second double play.
The Fishermen open state tournament play in Eugene against the Tualatin Timberwolves junior varsity on Thursday at noon.
The Oregon Junior Baseball Association is comprised primarily of 5A and 6A junior varsity teams with a handful of smaller schools who tend to have more of their varsity players. Most schools in the Portland Metro area have organized to form the Oregon Independent Baseball Association to compete with their varsity teams, while their J.V.'s compete in O.J.B.A., commonly known as "Junior State".
