Bankus dominates in Olympic victory

The best performance of the year wasn’t quite enough for the Bremerton High baseball team, which lost 4-0 against Olympic High on Tuesday at Legion Field in Bremerton.

The Trojans got a little help from sophomore pitcher Nick Bankus after their 8-3 loss to South Kitsap the night before.

The fastball-hurling right hander with a nasty change-up struck out 14 Knights’ batters, which is considered miraculous by Olympic (8-3, 4-1 league) coach Nate Andrews.

“That’s not common,” he said. “That’s two strikeouts an inning. If you have even 10 strikeouts in a seven-inning game, you are doing something right.”

Bankus, who is a world-class skier, had to join the team late this season because he was at a slalom competition and couldn’t get 10 practices in with the rest of the team.

Bremerton (0-10, 0-5) coach Mike McKnight said their fight against Olympic was the best game they played all year, despite being short on players and starting several junior-varsity members.

Bremerton’s star center fielder Ian Matiekat was home sick.

Two of Bremerton’s four seniors — Jeff Lee and Robby Robinson — had solid games.

Both plucked line drives to rob Olympic of easy doubles.

“The big difference this year is we don’t have any pitchers,” Lee said. “We just have to have some seniors step up more and take charge of the team. We lost everyone.”

The game under the lights mostly was a pitching duel.

Bankus kept the Knights guessing, giving up only two hits.

On Bremerton’s side, Jeff Lee started the game and kept Olympic scoreless until the third inning, when he was pulled because of a sore shoulder.

Justin Rash finished the game for Bremerton, holding the Trojans to four runs on 84 pitches.

But the Knights continue to struggle offensively.

Rash said he wanted the win a little more today.

“This is one of the first-place teams, so we definitely gave it all today.”

So far this season, the Knights have lost every game, with their worst league loss coming against North Kitsap on March 31, 24-0.

In all five of their league games, they have been outscored 73-18.

“We’re not bad for three or four innings and then all of a sudden it falls apart for us,” McKnight said.

In their game against Olympic, Bremerton stayed in the contest 0-0 until the fourth inning, when Lee was plucked from the mound and Nick Bankus knocked a ball to center field. Moments later Jeff Shaw hit a triple bringing him home. Then, in the top of the sixth inning, the Trojans scored three more runs.

“Pitching is our biggest problem,” McKnight said. “Number two, we can’t seem to string hits together. Number three is our fielding. We get errors at the worst times.”

At South Kitsap 8, Olympic 3 — Shannon Haney hit a home run and starter Matt Hudson (3-0) recorded five strikeouts as the Wolves recorded a Narrows League Bridge Division win against Olympic on Tuesday.

“This one here was a good battle,” SK coach Jim Fairweather said. “(Olympic) is a good club, they’re pretty solid.”

Erik Dixon went 1-for-1 with an RBI to lead the Trojans. Jeff Shaw recorded the loss for Olympic.

Comment on this story.

COMMENTING RULES: We encourage an open exchange of ideas in our online community, but we ask you to follow our guidelines for respecting community standards. In a nutshell, don't say anything you wouldn't want your mother to read. Please see our FAQ if you have questions or concerns about using Facebook to comment.