The last thing Jake Wilson remembers is starting his slide into second base, hoping to break-up an impending double play. He did, but not the way he intended to.

The throw to first was low and struck a sliding Wilson directly in the face. Wilson remained conscious, but was completely disoriented- unsure about what had happened and more importantly, what would happen next.

The next thing Jake Wilson remembers is kneeling on the infield at Island Crest Park, staring at his own teeth.

“My teeth were scattered about,” Wilson recalls. “I didn’t know what to think at the time, I thought my life was over.” It wasn’t, but you can’t blame Wilson for having those thoughts.

The baseball caught Wilson flush, knocking out three of his teeth, fracturing his palatal plate, shattering the buccal plate of his pre-maxilla (the bone that creates the form of the upper jaw) and leaving him with a mouthful of lacerations. “There was blood coming out, it was pretty bad,” Wilson said.

The first person on the scene was Ari Kira, who said he has played baseball with Wilson since Little League and counts him among his best friends. Acting purely on instinct, Kira ran from the Interlake dugout to where Wilson was on the infield and did the first thing that came to mind: picked up his friend’s teeth. “I didn’t think twice,” said Kira.

Teeth in hand, Wilson and his father rushed to Seattle to see a specialist who performed a seven hour surgery to put Wilson’s face back together. While the injury was regrettable in nature, the circumstances surrounding the surgical procedure were coincidently miraculous.

Wilson had spent the previous summer playing on a traveling team with some of the same Islanders he was facing-off against on that fateful day. Walt Ingram, who is now a freshman team coach for Mercer Island, was at the park and is also a friend of the Wilson family. His son Kirby had recently suffered a dental injury as well, so Ingram called the same specialist who had performed his son’s procedure, Dr. Raymond Lee.

Jake’s father Doug says upon receiving the call, Lee left his Medina home and met the Wilson’s at his practice in Seattle. Jake was in the doctor’s chair not 45 minutes after the accident occurred. “We are very grateful to doctor Lee and his staff,” the elder Wilson said.

What followed was seemingly constant check-ups with the Lee, two weeks of missed school and soup, a lot of it.

“I was pretty much eating soup for a month,” Wilson said. But the most painful part wasn’t the surgery, or the lack of solid food. It was knowing he would not be with his teammates for the rest of the year. “I felt like I let the team down,” Wilson said. “I wanted to be out there so bad.”

After missing the rest of the 2010 high school season and keeping away from the diamond throughout the summer as well, Wilson said he began to feel like his old self sometime during this past winter. Although he was unable to wrestle as a result of missing the beginning part of the season, Wilson was cleared by his doctor to practice with the team and eventually started playing catch again also, signaling both emotionally and psychologically that he would be able to return to the diamond in 2011. “The biggest thing was wondering if I’d be able to come back out on the field emotionally,” Wilson said. “I had no idea if I’d be able to do it again.”

The first practice this season was a major test and Wilson said he spent the majority of the session mentally preparing himself to get back in the batter’s box and face live pitching. “I was really nervous,” Wilson said. “I didn’t go up to hit first, but I felt way more comfortable than I thought I would.”

Eventually, the apprehension subsided and the stroke came back. Aside from a custom-fitted mouthguard, there is no evidence of the horrific injury. Interlake coach Marc Linn, who is in his first season with the Saints, said he never even would have known about the injury if not for the mouthpiece, a testament to Wilson’s ability to move past that painful memory physically and psychologically.

He says he has regained the confidence in his instincts at the plate, giving him the assurance that if a ball travels inside, he can avoid it. But that doesn’t mean he’s going charging into second base anytime soon. “I’ve learned once now that I’m not going to beat a ball,” Wilson said.

Even without a complete offseason to train, Wilson has still found a way to not only get back on the diamond in 2011, but help lead the Saints through the regular season and bi-district playoffs into the 2A state tournament, where they will meet Burlington-Edison at Yelm High School today. A win moves the Saints into the state quarterfinals to face the winner of another opening round game between Centralia and Lindbergh. But every pitch is precious in the playoffs, where any game can be your last.

If the Saints need a reminder of that, they can just ask Jake Wilson.