As the 2023 high school baseball season progressed and the Tahoma Bears racked up wins, it became more and more likely that it was a throwaway non-league game to close out the regular season.
By Thursday’s drizzly night in Puyallup, only the hosts Vikings stood between Tahoma and an undefeated regular season. However, it was not in vain that Puyallup started the season as one of the top Class 4A teams in the state.
Puyallup junior catcher Kai Halstead said, “We knew they were the number one team and we started as the number one team, so we wanted to get that number one spot back.” .
Exactly who is No. 1 will begin to be deciphered next week when the postseason begins. However, the Vikings won Tahoma at the Heritage Recreation Center, where he won 4–2, convincing himself that he had no undefeated players.
Halstead erased the 1-0 deficit with a solid single past third base to score Donte Grant in the bottom of the fourth, then two-hitter Mason Pike hit a bad-hop triple to break Halstead and Tristan Ringrose in a three-run inning. obtained. That proved good enough for his 4A state runner-up in 2022.
Puyallup used four pitchers to hold on to the Bears’ offense, which has scored four or more runs in every game through Thursday this season. After the three Vikings pitched two innings each, Pike got up on the bump in the seventh inning and Puyallup took a 4–1 lead.
Logan Pierce’s single, Noah Lee’s RBI double, and Pyke’s throwing error on Jackson Walker’s comeback from the plate put the Bears in second and third with one out and one run.
Puyallup manager Marc Wiese said: “We have to work a little more. “We did the same thing on Saturday. Mason came on his feet and threw one out.”
However, when Walker represented the tying run and stood in second place, Pike struck out Jackson Bartice and grounded Griffin Bhai to shortstop to end it.
“We wanted some people to do the work,” said Wiese. “Get some AB. They’re pretty exciting and what I tell our buddies is that bullseye is always on your back. We’re 18 to 2 , they’re 20 to 0, but it doesn’t matter, the bullseye is on your back.
Jack Dodge led the game for Tahoma (20-1) with a hard ground ball between first and second base. Puyallup first baseman Jackson Copeland hooked it with the webbing of his glove, but Dodge reached first and was unable to retrieve the ball from that webbing.
After two batters, senior catcher Carson Orlando lined up the first pitch he saw into right center field to score a dodge and the Bears took a 1–0 lead. While Pierce mowed down the Vikings in order in the first three innings, Tahoma mounted another threat in the second.
Lee took the lead on a double and moved to third on Walker’s single. But then Halstead changed everything first with a snap throw, catching Walker too far from the start. The pickoff was the first big one of the inning.
Hunter Glasser then held Puyallup’s deficit to one run as he completed two scheduled innings on the mound with consecutive strikeouts and grounded Lee in third. That remained until Puyallup got his first hit off Grant to take the lead in the fourth.
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