By Blake Colston
Sports Editor
It’s been a long road back for Piedmont’s Jackson Califano, but the senior lefthander took a big step forward on Tuesday night.
The 6-foot-4 senior pitched six scoreless innings and struck out five batters while scattering three hits as the Wildcats beat El Reno 4-1 to complete a sweep of their district rivals.
Califano missed all of his junior season while recovering from elbow surgery but has worked his way back into a starting role this season and on Tuesday, the Carl Albert State commit threw a career-high 105 pitches.
“To come back and just go felt amazing,” said Califano, who had previously topped out at about 90 pitches this spring.
“He’s the kind of guy who wants the ball. He was begging for it,” head coach Adam Skokowski said. “He’s proven every time out that he can compete. He’s had great starts all season.”
Califano’s return will allow Skokowski to use Noah Smith and Noah Aller in reserve as the Wildcats chase their first state title in program history.
“Our biggest goal for this year is to build pitching depth,” Skokowski said. “We want to make sure we can make it all the way through the championship game with arms we can trust.”
Califano said he didn’t have a great feel for his off-speed pitches early on Tuesday so he relied on a two-seam and four-seam fastball to get outs. Once he established his fastball, Califano was able to induce swings-and-misses on sliders outside of the strike zone.
“In the games like these, you have to be at your best,” he said.
A day after Piedmont (10-4, 6-0) pounded out 17 hits in a 12-2 win at El Reno (4-11, 0-6), the Wildcats manufactured single runs in each of the first three innings to stake Califano to an early 3-0 lead.
“Once I get that one run, I feel like I can just go,” Califano said.
PHS totaled eight hits led by Weston Thomas‘ two-hit day. The Wildcats didn’t connect for a big inning off of Indians starter Gabe Compton, but the ‘Cats made their hits count by playing solid situational baseball.
Reid Smith delivered a sacrifice fly to bring home Piedmont’s first run and Noah Smith and Dalton Hampton followed with RBI-groundouts to increase the lead to 3-0.
“We did a good job of scoring runners from third with less than two outs. That’s a big goal of ours,” Skokowski said. “We work on that on a daily and weekly basis, so that was good today.”
Piedmont added an insurance run in the sixth inning on a ground ball to third off the bat of Luke Hill that brought home Jackson Harriger who had singled with one out.
El Reno scratched across a run in its final at-bat and had runners on second and third with two away, but freshman closer Clayton Harrington worked in and out of trouble with a strikeout to end the game.
FINAL: @WildcatBSB beats El Reno 4-1 as Clayton Harrington closes it out w/ a swinging strikeout. #OKpreps pic.twitter.com/yJDPOSGcMT
— Blake Colston (@CBlakeColston) March 29, 2023
“For a freshman, the kid’s a dog. I love watching him play. He’s a great pitcher.” Califano said of Harrington. “Knowing I have guys I can rely on behind me, not even just Clayton. We have a bunch of guys behind that I know can go out and shove.”
The Wildcats will host Putnam City North on Thursday with first pitch slated for 6 p.m.
