The Chronicle's All-Area Baseball team poses for a photo at Bearcat Stadium in Chehalis on Monday. Front row (L to R): Centralia's Hodges Bailey, Napavine's Sam Fagerness, Napavine's Mac Fagerness and Pe Ell-Willapa Valley's Kaelin Jurek. Back row (L to R): Adna's Isaac Ingle, W.F. West's Brandon White, W.F. West's Tyson Guerrero (MVP), W.F. West's Dakota Hawkins, Tenino's Rob Wall and Adna's Spencer Burdick. Not pictured: W.F. West's Tysen Paul, Toledo's Dakota Robins
The Chronicle's All-Area Baseball team poses for a photo at Bearcat Stadium in Chehalis on Monday. (L to R): Pe Ell-Willapa Valley's Kaelin Jurek, Centralia's Hodges Bailey, W.F. West's Brandon White, W.F. West's Tyson Guerrero (MVP), W.F. West's Dakota Hawkins, Tenino's Rob Wall, Adna's Isaac Ingle, Adna's Spencer Burdick, Napavine's Mac Fagerness, Napavine's Sam Fagerness and Napavine's Wyatt Stanley. Not pictured: W.F. West's Tysen Paul, Toledo's Dakota Robins
W.F. West's Tyson Guerrero poses for a photo on the mound at Bearcat Stadium in Chehalis on Monday. Guerrero is the MVP of The Chronicle's All-Area Baseball team.
Any way you look at it, Tyson Guerrero was the hottest ticket in Lewis County prep baseball this season.
Hardware? The junior picked up the Evergreen 2A Conference MVP award.
Numbers? Whether at the plate or on the mound, the W.F. West standout was arguably the best in his role.
Intangibles? In big games or clutch situations, Guerrero managed to come through.
And, as such, the Bearcat star was an easy pick for The Chronicle’s All-Area Baseball Team MVP award this spring.
The 5-foot-11 lefthander worked 40 ⅔ innings, striking out 70 batters and posting a 1.89 ERA. And at the plate, batted leadoff and hit a team-best .415, with 22 RBIs, five doubles, three triples and a home run.
But the numbers don’t tell the whole story.
Take the State 2A semifinals. Guerrero got off to a rough start, then delivered his best performance of the season for the last five innings, striking out 12 and shutting down Anacortes in a 7-2 win.
“When he’s on, no one can really touch him,” Adrian Boites, the Bearcats’ third-baseman and a relief pitcher, said. “I seriously love watching him pitch. He just puts on a show.”
How’d W.F. West get to the semifinals? There’s another Guerrero tale. With a regional game tied at 9-9 in the bottom of the seventh and two outs, Guerrero launched a long line drive to left field to score the winning run in walk-off fashion. It wasn’t his first walk-off of the year; he pulled the same trick in the eighth inning of a win over Tumwater, and among his standout pitching performances during the course of the regular season was a no-hitter against Rochester.
Guerrero had plenty of crimson-and-grey company on this year’s All-Area squad. Bearcat catcher Tysen Paul, moving into a starting role for the first time in his senior year, hit .377 with 21 RBIs to earn an All-League nod as a designated hitter. Dakota Hawkins, meanwhile, was a first-team pick in the infield and led the Bearcats with 24 RBIs while hitting .328 with nine doubles — not to mention a 1.93 ERA in 32 ⅔ innings on the mound.
And Brandon White, a junior righthander and All-League first-team pick, worked a team-high 44 ⅔ innings with a 1.88 ERA and 54 strikeouts.
A trio of Napavine seniors, who played in the state’s final four as freshmen and seniors, made the All-Area squad, in twins Sam and Mac Fagerness and Central 2B League co-MVP Wyatt Stanley.
Sam Fagerness, headed for Big Bend Community College to play ball next year, was a four-year staple in the heart of the Tigers’ batting order. This season he hit .340 with 18 RBIs and two home runs, playing second base and occasionally pitching and catching.
Mac Fagerness, at shortstop, batted at the top of the Tigers’ order and hit .429 with 12 RBIs and seven stolen bases.
Stanley, meanwhile, posted a 7-1 record on the mound with a 0.53 ERA and 81 strikeouts in 40 innings, while hitting .370 with 21 RBIs.
Adna’s Spencer Burdick was the co-MVP of the C2BL, going 9-1 on the season with 93 strikeouts in 46 innings of work with a 0.60 ERA. The Lower Columbia signee also hit .458 during the regular season. He was joined on the All-Area squad by classmate and outfielder Isaac Ingle, who hit .365 during the regular season.
Kaelin Jurek was the leader of a Pe Ell-Willapa Valley team that turned a few heads by reaching the regional playoffs after graduating the bulk of its 2016 starters. The four-year starter at catcher hit .492 with five doubles, a home run and 16 RBIs, while stealing 15 bases and striking out just three times all year.
There was plenty of 2B talent to go around, with Toledo’s Dakota Robins landing a spot on the squad. The senior pitcher worked 45 innings, giving up 19 hits and 10 walks while striking out 82 batters. He also hit .367 with 16 RBIs.
Tenino shortstop Rob Wall helped the Beavers to a second-place finish in the 1A Evergreen standings, hitting .510 in his senior campaign with 14 RBIs and a 1.465 OPS.
Hodges Bailey, a senior outfielder, patrolled center field for the Tigers all season without committing an error. The leadoff man also hit .306 with 10 stolen bases and nine RBIs, as well as going 1-1 with a pair of saves on the mound.
The Chronicle’s 2017 All-Area Baseball Team
MVP: Tyson Guerrero, Jr., W.F. West
Dakota Hawkins Jr. W.F. West
Tysen Paul Sr. W.F. West
Brandon White Jr. W.F. West
Spencer Burdick Sr. Adna
Isaac Ingle Sr. Adna
Wyatt Stanley Sr. Napavine
Sam Fagerness Sr. Napavine
Mac Fagerness Sr. Napavine
Dakota Robins Sr. Toledo
Kaelin Jurek Sr. Pe Ell-Willapa Valley
Hodges Bailey Sr. Centralia
Rob Wall Sr. Tenino
