The baseball team at West Seattle High School has had its difficulties over the last few years, but the last two have been filled with more ups than downs.  

Last year, the boys made it all the way to the final four of the state and finished the season in 4th place with a 24-3 record. This year they are in the final four again and play Lincoln High School on Friday, May 26th in the semi-finals. Before these last two years, the team had a losing record and did not even qualify for the metro playoffs. When someone sees this drastic change—where the team went from a losing record to making it to the final four in the playoffs—they are more likely than not going to wonder “What contributed to this incredible improvement?” To understand what those factors were, I asked Bobby Trigg. He is a key player on the team who has been on varsity throughout his high school career and will be playing next year. I asked Bobby what he thought the biggest factors to the team were and to sum it up, he said there were many different contributions made; including all the players having the best seasons they could have and the coaching change right before the season. He made sure to mention Miles Gosztola, current senior, who allowed 2 runs the entire season and broke the Washington State strikeout record. 

The next question I asked Bobby was, “Did the coaching change right before the season have the biggest impact on the team?” For those who do not know, the 2020-2021 coach moved right before the last season, so Coach Dylan stepped in just weeks before the season started. Bobby says he thinks that Coach Dylan was the biggest factor in what turned the team around. I agree with him; I think that Coach Dylan stepping up to take the head coach job was the best thing for the program and it really showed last year. Coach Dylan made the team fun and prioritized the importance of being good teammates. That is another thing the team needed last year, to have a relationship with everyone on the team and make sure everyone played together like they have for years. Now this year the team is trying to win WSHS baseball its first state championship. With Dylan still the head coach, they are trying to finish what they started last year. And after just falling short of winning in the past season, they are back this year ready to win it all. 

I was also on the baseball team last year, and I did not realize how big of a deal it was that we were going to state until we got there. We were already in the metro playoffs and to make it to state we only needed to win two of our next three games. After we won the second game, I was in the loudest place I had ever been in my entire life. It was the first time we had gone to state in 9 years. After celebrating with the team, I looked up to the stands and saw how many people were there; watching. The amount of older people with WSHS baseball hats on was crazy. So many people came out to support the team, because baseball is so important in West Seattle and still means a lot to all the West Seattle baseball alumni. The team played against Lincoln in the semi-finals and continues to make all the West Seattle baseball supporters proud.