Poky claims district championship with mercy-rule victory over Preston

POCATELLO — Longtime Pocatello head baseball coach Vinnie Benavidez believes his young team spent much of the 2025 season searching for one thing: confidence.

A team with just four seniors, the Thunder started the season with an abysmal 2-11 record. Since though, they have gone 8-5, including a 14-4 victory over Preston, Friday at Pocatello’s Halliwell Park, to claim the 5A District 5 championship.

Despite the early struggles, Benavidez expected all along for his team to hoist the district trophy and challenge for a state championship.

“We’ve had a lot of success in this district, and we expect to win this district,” he said after the game Friday. “We’ve seen it with the way they’ve played — they played these two games, in the district tournament, with a lot of confidence.”

Poky got a solid start from senior Jett Mechling.

The sidearming right-hander pitched all five innings, holding Preston to three hits while striking out five.

Like the rest of his team, Benavidez said, Mechling has spent much of the season searching for confidence on the mound. And over the last few weeks, coinciding with the Thunder’s success, he has found it.

“The last few outings, he’s been, really, really, really good for us,” the coach said. “He’s one of those kids, once he started believing in himself he’s a completely different pitcher.”

While both starters were victims of some shoddy defensive play behind them, Mechling’s opposite number, Preston starter Caide Oxborrow, could not pitch around the errors.

Oxborrow recorded just four outs, surrendering eight runs on one hit — though he did issue five walks.

It was an elongated second inning which served as Oxborrow and Preston’s undoing.

The Thunder recorded two of their five hits, leading to seven runs in the inning, and a 10-1 lead.

Freshman catcher Parker Weinheimer contributed two hits, two RBIs and a sacrifice bunt. Junior Nate Rogers, who finished with one hit, two walks and a hit-by-pitch, ended the game with an RBI single up the middle scoring Pocatello’s 14th run and giving them a 10-run lead in the bottom of the fifth — triggering the 10-run mercy rule.

With the win, Pocatello punched its ticket to the state tournament super-regional round.

Benavidez expects the tournament brackets to be released early next week, adding that he believes his team will be a bottom seed in the super-regional round hosted by the District 6-champion Bonneville Bees.

The seeding, however, does not matter to Benavidez, who is a believer in the idea that “anything can happen” once the playoffs start.

“The most important thing is getting there. Once you get there, anything can happen,” he said. “When you’ve got a couple wins, convincing wins, going in, you’re going to show up with a lot of confidence.”