3 WIAA regional baseball games you should not have missed Saturday

After two weeks of long south and east travel, the Sumner baseball team gets to put on more miles with one last trip north.

Road warriors this postseason, the Spartans pulled off two upset wins Saturday over West Valley of Yakima and Richland - the top two 4A programs in eastern Washington - to advance to the Class 4A semifinals next weekend in Everett.

Facing West Valley’s Tommy Meluskey in the opening round, the Spartans struggled trying to figure out the left-hander on the mound. Once he was removed, Sumner’s offense was able to do just enough in a 2-1 win over the Rams.

Sumner and its taste for the dramatics was far from done after that narrow win.

Trailing third-seeded Richland by one run in the top of the seventh inning, the Spartans were able to tie the game and force extra innings.

After a scoreless eighth inning, Sumner tallied four runs in the ninth inning - and then shut the door on the Bombers to notch their second upset win of the day.

"My group is really deep and a lot of them just take care of business in their life – they're kids that work really hard behind the scenes after games," Sumner coach Casey Adcox said. "They're kids that are super well-rounded and I think in moments where it's tough that really pays off. Those kids just have something that's intangible about them."

Sumner has spent the last two weekends on the road, first with a trip to Camas for districts and then this weekend at Richland.

For the Spartans, an hour-long trip up Interstate-5 for the state semifinals feels like it's just down the road.

Awaiting Sumner in the WIAA semifinals will be a familiar foe - 4A SPSL rival Puyallup.

The Spartans recorded a 5-3 win over the Vikings in the first month of the season, but Puyallup has come away with wins in the last two meetings, the most recent being a 7-1 decision May 13.

"Puyallup is obviously a great team. I think there's a mental game when you play Puyallup for a lot of teams, but I don't think that's really the case with us," Adcox said. "We know that they know us. I think our kids are quietly excited."

TAHOMA KNOCKS OUT DEFENDING 4A CHAMPION OLYMPIA

Down go the defending Class 4A champs.

After handling Skyline easily in the opening round, Tahoma coach Brett Jaime said his sophomore pitcher Adam Jay threw the best he's seen him all season against Olympia in the quarterfinals.

For Tahoma, it was a redemption win in more ways than one.

Not only did Tahoma get a bounceback win from last week's loss to Olympia in districts, but it was also a win over the school that knocked it out of the playoffs a year ago.

"(Jay) had three different pitches working really well, his fastball was super electric and when the defense needed to make plays they made them," Jaime said. "It was cool to see him have a start like that because we know he's a really good pitcher, but that was kind of the first time he's been able to put everything together in a dominant performance like that."

Having just played Olympia a week prior, Tahoma had an idea of what to expect, but didn't know what pitcher they'd be seeing.

Simulated work against right and left-handed pitchers in practice leading up to the weekend paid dividends, Jaime said.

"We worked more on left-handed pitching thinking we had a pretty strong idea Skyline would throw a lefty and we thought Olympia would go with (Lincoln) Berg again," Jaime said. "We tried to really harness in the velocities we thought we'd be seeing."

Knocking out the defending state champion is nice, but heading to the program's fifth final four might be even sweeter.

Tahoma will have its work cut out for it in the semifinals against top-seeded Eastlake.

"It's fun to face arguably the top pitcher in the state in Bryce Johnson – he knocked us out last year in the first round, so we get to see him again," Jaime said. "A week of prep against a really tough arm is exciting. Then, you go out there and see what you can do. At this point of the season all the times are really tough and you're going to run up against some really tough pitchers, too."

EASTSIDE CATHOLIC SHAKES UP CLASS 3A BRACKET

Eastside Catholic isn't going to Everett, but it did upend the Class 3A tournament by upsetting No. 1 seed Kennewick in its first game before losing to Metro League rival O'Dea in the state quarterfinals.

The Crusaders scored the winning run in the top of the seventh inning to take a 2-1 lead. After that, sophomore pitcher Will Crain put a bow on a complete-game effort in the bottom half of the inning to close out the game.

O'Dea defeated Eastside Catholic, 7-3, later Saturday.

(Featured photo by Lauren Smith/The News Tribune)