Sep 2, 2017 3 min read

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – The Wild Things are in the Frontier League playoffs for the first time since 2014.

The only mystery is who will they be playing in the opening round.

James Harris went 3-for-3 with two doubles and two runs to lead Washington to an 8-2 victory over Traverse City in the nightcap of a doubleheader Saturday.

Traverse City won the opener, 5-4.

The win, combined with Schaumburg’s 4-1 victory over Windy City later in the night, clinched a wild-card berth for the Wild Things, who have won six of their last seven games.

The split leaves Washington with a 52-43 record and tied with Evansville for the first of the league’s two wild-card playoff spots. Evansville lost 11-2 at Gateway. If Washington and Evansville end the season with identical records, then Washington will be the first wild-card team (No. 3 seed), based on a tiebreaker, and play West Division champion Florence in the first round of the playoffs. If Washington loses the regular-season finale Sunday and Evansville wins, then the Wild Things will be the second wild-card team and play top-seeded Schaumburg, the East Division winner.

The opening round of the Frontier League playoffs start Tuesday night. Washington will host Games 1 and 2, the latter Wednesday night. The series will be best-of-5.

After losing the opening game, the Wild Things wasted no time in taking control of the nightcap. Washington scored two runs in the first inning and added three more in the third for a 5-0 lead.

The Beach Bums used a two-run homer by Steven Patterson off Washington starter Aaron Burns to close to within 5-2 in the third, but the Wild Things tacked on two runs in the fourth and one in the sixth.

Trailing 7-2, Traverse City loaded the bases with no outs in the fifth but Jacob Condra-Bogan (1-0) relieved Burns and escaped the jam unscathed after a strikeout, foulout and flyout. It was the first professional win for Condra-Bogan, a rookie out of Georgia Southern.

Washington’s Justin Bohn had a triple among his three hits, Bralin Jackson tripled, scored twice and drove in two, and Rashad Brown had two hits and two runs.

After Washington took a 4-3 lead in the top of the fifth inning of the opener, Arby Fields led off the bottom half of the inning with a home run off reliever Wild Things reliever Trevor Bradley (2-3). Following two strikeouts, three consecutive singles, the last by Orlando Rivera, gave Traverse City the 5-4 lead.

Washington put runners on first and third with one out in the seventh but Traverse City closer Matt Williams struck out Hector Roa and got Kyle Pollock to pop out to end the game.

Traverse City erased a 1-0 deficit by scoring three times in the third against Washington starter Brian O’Keefe. The Wild Things regained the lead at 4-3 with consecutive run-scoring singles by Harris, Brown and Jackson with no outs, but Washington left a runner at third base after two strikeouts and a flyout.