The Neah-Kah-Nie High Pirates Class 3A baseball and softball teams both opened their spring season last week with nonleague contest’s.
An offseason of changes took place on the Pirates baseball team as former Coach Rob Herder retired and 10 seniors graduated from last year’s OSAA state playoff team. New first-year head Coach Steve Overstreet will be steering the Pirates’ ship now after he was an assistant coach the previous two years.
“We’re ready to start the season, I’m excited about it and we’ll see what happens,” said Overstreet. “We had seven of the graduated seniors who were starters last year. We had some underclassmen who were pitching a lot last year, so we have some experienced guys who will be able to help us on the mound, so that’s one thing that I’m excited about.”
The Pirates enjoyed tremendous success last year as they took third place in the nine-team Special District 1 standings at 13-3 and 18-8 overall. The Pirates advanced to the second round of the 20-team state playoffs and they lost a road game 4-2 to the Sisters High Outlaws (20-8 in 2023) to end their season.
Overstreet didn’t have his entire 17-member squad available for practice until March 9. Practice started Feb. 26, but five players were unable to participate because they were on the Neah-Kah-Nie basketball team that was competing in the state tournament Feb. 29-March 2 in Coos Bay.
“We’ve got a lot of depth on our team, so we’ll rotate some playars in and out of the lineup and we’ll go from there,” said Overstreet. “We’ll be counting on our two seniors Anthony Allen and Johnny Burch to help lead our offense. We’re also expecting to see some good, strong hitting from Ethan Hanson, Brody Mersereau, Brady Douma and Kason Fletcher.”
There will be lots of new faces this year in the Pirates starting lineup this year as they’ll be seeking to reach the state playoffs for a fifth straight year. The Pirates have just two returning starters from last year’s squad in Allen and Hanson. Allen earned an SD1 First Team All League Award last year.
The No. 16-ranked Pirates (0-1) opened the season with a 14-4 nonleague loss to the No. 4-ranked Taft High Tigers (2-0) March 14 at Taft High School in Lincoln City.
The Pirates play their next contest in a 4:30 p.m. nonleague matchup Friday versus the Class 2A No. 9-ranked Vernonia/Jewell High Loggers (1-1) at Vernonia High School. Neah-Kah-Nie begins a 16-game SD1 schedule April 2 with a 4:30 p.m. contest versus the No. 27-ranked Horizon Christian High Hawks (1-1) in Tualatin.
The defending SD1 league champ/state champion Banks High Braves (1-0) are expected to be one of the top contenders again this season since 10 of their 15 players return from last year’s team.
Neah-Kah-Nie Softball
The OSAA reclassification two years ago turned out to be a nightmare for the Neah-Kah-Nie High Pirates softball team. One year after reaching the 2022 Class 2A/1A state playoffs, everything went downhill for the Pirates after moving up to the 3A level in 2023.
The Pirates started last year with a nine-game losing streak, which they snapped with an 11-8 home win over the Warrenton High Warriors on April 24, 2023. The Pirates lost 10-straight games to conclude the season with a 1-14 SD1 record and 1-19 overall. The Pirates, guided by first-year Coach Jenni Stinnett, played very competitively throughout the season, which included seven close losses by single digit margins.
The Pirates are focusing on having a much improved record this season. A solid group of seniors with Melly Pierson, Makenna Bentley, Kailyn Stinnett, Liliana Rodriguez and Ayumi Takami will help provide leadership on the team. Pierson and Rodriguez will lead the defense as the top-two hurlers in the pitching circle.
“The seniors are great leaders for the younger girls,” said Coach Stinnett, who was a Pirates assistant coach last year. “We have kind of a young team with six freshmen, one sophomore and one junior. A majority of our players are very young and since we have a new coaching staff, we’re just kind of rebuilding. We have a good group of girls and we’ll see how things go. We’re just hoping to have a good season and I’m excited to see how well our team will do this year. Last year we had our chances to win and we were in lots of close games, but we just couldn’t pull out many victories.”
The much improved 13-member Pirates squad (1-0), had a great start to the season with a 19-18 nonleague home win over the Taft High Tigers (0-2) March 13. The season opening victory equaled their win total from last year after just one game, which is certainly something to get excited about.
The victory also indicates that the Pirates have definitely improved by leaps and bounds from a year ago. Considering that they lost 15-0 to Taft last year on March 23, 2023, there’s no doubt that this group of Pirates has definitely already proved to be a much better team than last year’s squad.
Kailyn Stinnett (Jenni’s daughter) and junior Lorelai Keefauver are expected to lead the offense as the Pirates two best hitters. Keefauver and sophomore Emma Grimes are key returning players from last year who will be counted on to make significant contributions offensively and defensively for the Pirates.
The No. 11-ranked Pirates begin a 15-game SD1 schedule with a 4:30 p.m. home contest versus the Rainier High Columbians (0-1) April 2 at Neah-Kah-Nie High School in Rockaway.
The defending league champion Valley Catholic High Valiants (16-7 in 2023) are considered to be the top team again this year since they have 15 of their 18 players returning from last year’s state quarterfinal playoff squad.
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