Bend Elks Pitcher, Alex Via of Bend, stands on the ball field, before the start of the Bend Elks game against the Marion Berries at Vince Genna stadium in Bend Tuesday evening. 7-8-25 Andy Tullis/The Bulletin

Alex Via and the Bend Elks received good news on Tuesday from the University of Portland’s coaching staff.

The recent Summit High School graduate and Class 5A Pitcher of the Year got the go ahead from the college team he will be playing for next spring to up his workload on the mound during the second half of the West Coast League baseball season.

“He can start throwing three, four innings,” said Bend Elks coach Allen Cox. “We are really excited about that for him.”

The Elks were given instructions to take it easy on Via and not to overexert his arm, especially after the postseason Via had on the mound to help Summit win its second state title in program history.

During the season, Summit coach Aaron Boehm said there was no other pitcher he would want on the mound in an important game. And Via was in nearly every important game to close out the season.

A month ago, Summit rode the 5-foot-11, 175-pound right-hander to the state championship. In three of the four playoff games – the first round, quarterfinals and semifinals – Via was given the ball to start the game.

Perhaps no outing was finer than the 9-2 win over top-seeded and undefeated Wilsonville in the semifinals, in which Via pitched seven innings, holding the high-scoring Wildcats to two runs on six hits while striking out seven batters on 94 pitches.

“That was amazing,” Via said. “It felt really good to go on the road and beat a team like that. They were for sure the team to beat this year.”

Aside from pitching one game in the Oregon All-Star Series, in which he was named the South Team’s Most Outstanding Player for the game he pitched, Via had only pitched one game for the Elks in the first half of the season.

In Tuesday night’s 15-9 win over the Marion Berries, Via got back on the mound for just the second time this summer for the Elks, and it was the first time that he threw more than one inning.

His first extended action went about as one might expect for a high school pitcher making the leap to facing a lineup full of college players. Via came in to pitch the eighth and ninth inning and allowed six earned runs on eight hits while striking out two Marion batters.

Via knew that coming in and pitching in the WCL would be a challenge and the margin of error would be much smaller than the competition he was facing just weeks earlier.

“In high school, you can get away with missing pitches, especially in the middle of the zone,” Via said. “At this level, if you accidentally leave a pitch over the middle, it gets crushed. Nine times out of 10, they will get a hit off of you. It is really more about executing pitches, and it is a much different level of focus and competitiveness that you have to have to get outs at this level.”

In his first outing with the Elks, Via struck out two Yakima Valley batters in the one inning he pitched back on June 28.

“I would say that was pretty successful,” Via said. “Moments like that show that I can compete with these guys. I know that I am one of the younger guys on the team and fresh out of high school, but that shows that I can hang with them and belong on the team.”

Cox, who frequently watched Via pitch for Summit during the spring, believes he has the makeup to go along with his five-pitch arsenal – fastball, cutter, slider, sinker and changeup – to keep playing at a high level once he begins playing college baseball.

“He has that competitiveness in him,” Cox said. “He wants to get on the mound. He would throw every day if he could, and he’s probably in good enough shape to do it. But we are looking for longevity out of him.”

Pitching in the West Coast League is vastly different than pitching in high school. There are games nearly every day of the week, there is a lot more travel and the skill level is much deeper. But, even if he isn’t pitching as much as he was with the Storm, Via sees this summer as a valuable experience as he progresses in his baseball career.

“The big transition is having six games a week,” Via said. “But I really enjoy the amount of games that we are playing. There is a definite jump in the competition level and skill level. I’ve really enjoyed it. I think it will overall help me prepare myself better for college and get me ready for that season.”