By Nick Berman

The Wolverines will play their first CIF playoff game in 5 years on Tuesday against Downey High School. Downey is part of the San Gabriel League in the CIF Southern Section; The Vikings finished the year in 2^nd place in their League with a league record of 10-5 and an overall record of 17-10. Harvard -Westlake finished fourth in the Mission League (one of the toughest leagues in the division) with a record of 5-12 in league and 14-12 record overall.

Harvard -Westlake will play Downey in this Wild Card Matchup on Tuesday May 13^th at 3:00 pm at Downey High School.

The Wolverines will send their Ace, Nik Turley, to the mound on Tuesday. This is the senior’s first playoff appearance. In the regular season, Turley posted a 1.88 ERA (second lowest in the Mission League) over a team-leading 67 innings pitched. Turley went 6-4 on the year, going for 7 complete games in 11 starts and striking out 72 batters in those games. The southpaw is coming off of a complete game shutout in which he struck out 12 and looks to continue his success against a very good offensive team; Downey has averaged over 6 runs per game this year while Turley has given up only 18 Earned runs in 11 starts.

Most likely starting for the Downey Vikings will be Nate Coronado. Coronado is 5-5 in 12 starts on the year with a 1.607 ERA. This Downey team will represent a different look to the Wolverines, who have seen tons of power in their Mission League opponents. Downey’s leading homerun hitter has 2 homeruns and the team, as a whole, has 4 homeruns. The Wolverines, on the other hand, have 11 homeruns with Austin Wilson (10’) leading the team with 5 homers. Despite their lack of power, Downey has tons of speed on the base-paths as well as hitting for average at the plate. Ivory Thomas has stolen 17 of 20 on the year and leads the team, which has 4 players with 9 stolen bases or more. Downey’s offense is also impressive in that as a team, their batting average is .330 (.024 higher than the Wolverine’s average). Downey’s speed and consistency at the plate should represent one of Nik Turley’s toughest opponents of the year in Turley’s biggest game of his career.

Tuesday’s matchup should be a thriller as the Wolverines seek to advance in this huge CIF Southern Sectional playoff bracket. If the Wolverines can win on Tuesday, they would play Thursday at El Rancho High School. The CIF Playoffs consist of 4 rounds plus the wild card round, with the Championship coming on May 29^th at Dodger Stadium.