It’s official: the Palisades High baseball team is Western League champion for another season. Heading into their final two games against second-place Hamilton last week, the Dolphins found themselves in unfamiliar territory. With a 9-1 league record to the Yankees’ 8-2 mark, a sweep by Hami would have ended Pali’s dominance atop the league. It didn’t take long for the Dolphins to squash that possibility. Sophomore Sam Wasserman led off Thursday’s game at Hamilton with a home run, senior Chase Holmes added another solo homer in the second inning and senior Jake Green drove in sophomore Spencer Simon in the third to give Pali an early 3-0 lead. That’s all senior pitcher Dylan Jeffers would need, as he struck out 11 and scattered two hits over seven innings to secure the Dolphins’ 4-2 win and their eight-consecutive Western League title. On Monday, Pali returned home for the final regular season game for the team’s seven seniors and sent them out in style with a resounding 13-3 victory over the Yankees, with senior Nick Poulos getting the win on the mound. The triumph ran the Dolphins’ league record to a gaudy 54-3 over the last four seasons to go with the eight straight titles. ’They take pride in that,’ Pali head coach Mike Voelkel said following Monday’s win. ‘We’re (practicing) 365 days during the course of the year and sometimes it’s not easy to be motivated on a daily basis. But when you get this feeling, there’s no words or amount of money that’s going to allow them to feel how they do right now.’ Pali’s seniors include Jeffers, Holmes, Green and Poulos, as well as Phillip Joseph (who had three hits in the season finale), Adam Levin and Brad Schaeffer. Next up, the Dolphins (16-12, 11-1) will have to wait until the seeding meeting to find out their first round opponent in the City playoffs, starting on May 18. ’We didn’t get some wins that would’ve helped us,’ said Voelkel, who surmised Pali could be seeded anywhere from No. 8 to No. 11. ‘But winning the league title is going to help. We’re just going to wait and see what happens. We’re playing very, very well right now.’
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