On Wednesday May 23, the varsity Baseball team played in their first NCS game of the season. Fourth-seeded Piedmont defeated thirteenth-seed Salesian by a score of 6-2, advancing to the quarterfinals of the NCS division four playoffs.

Piedmont got off to a slow start in the game, but eventually a string of rallies pulled them ahead, senior Dylan Skov said.

“At the beginning of the game and through the middle, we were kind of relaxed, not really into the game, thinking that this was going to be a walk in the park,” Skov said. “Once we started to get a few hits, we got riled up and that went directly into our play and we started to play how we normally do.”

Senior Matthias Haggerty said that while the game did not go perfectly according to plan right off the bat, the team had confidence that they could win the game throughout.

“We wanted to end it early and try to leave no doubt but as the game went on we had to just keep grinding it out and we knew that eventually it would come,” Haggerty said.

The structure of NCS playoffs is single elimination, in other words, “win or go home.” The team as a whole must reflect that reality in their play, Skov said.

“The ultimate goal is obviously to win the entire thing, and I think that is very possible if we go into every game playing like it could be our last, because it very well could be,” Skov said.

Senior E.J. Cheung said that all of the work that the team has put in throughout the season has them well prepared for a bid at the championship game.

“We don’t want to end what we have worked so hard for on a loss,” Cheung said. “We want to be celebrating on our last game because I feel we’ve worked hard enough and we’ve earned it as a team.”