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WIAA Class 4A baseball roundup: Sumner stuns SPSL rival Puyallup to reach first championship game

Spartans reach Class 4A championship for first time in program history behind huge sixth inning

EVERETT, Wash. – Out-hitting your opponent 14-3 in the semifinals sounds like a good recipe to reach the championship game.

The Sumner Spartans did just that to upset South Puget Sound League rival Puyallup, 5-1, in the Class 4A semifinals.

Puyallup struck first, scoring a run on a Kai Halstead RBI single, but a sixth-inning outburst from Sumner unraveled the Vikings.

After three Sumner hitters reached base, Sean Ryan's single brought in two, giving the Spartans a 3-1 lead. Sumner scored two more times in the frame to take a 5-1 lead late in the game.

Outside of the one run, Sumner ace Jake Bresnahan shut down the Vikings, pitching a complete game with nine strikeouts.

"I saw the kid I see every day," Sumner coach Casey Adcox said of Bresnahan. "He's been so in control of the moments."

Bresnahan said he was pitching with confidence the whole way through.

"I was feeling myself, to say the least," he said.

Having played Puyallup three times already this season helped, but Adcox said the 4A SPSL overall helps in these big games.

"South Sound is strong and South Sound is all over," Adcox said. "These games and our league games prepare us for this."

Having lost in the state semifinals on two other occasions, Adcox and the Spartans will finally get their shot at bringing a state championship back to the valley.

Bryce Johnson, Eastlake roll to state title game

Eastlake pitcher and Oregon State commit Bryce Johnson needed just 75 pitches to dispatch Tahoma in a 5-1 win for the Wolves.

Outside of one run in the top of the first inning, Johnson sat down Tahoma hitter after hitter to lead his team to its first state championship in program history.

Johnson gave up only four hits and struck out six.

"I gave up one run in my last outing, too, I think in the first inning, so, I hate to say it, but I'm kind of used to giving up a run in the first," Johnson said. "I just had to dig deep. I know I can trust my team – they're great dudes, they can swing it."

Tahoma held a 1-0 lead for just one inning before Eastlake tied things up in the second on an RBI double from Blake Borup.

Johnson helped his own cause in the third, driving in a run on a single for a 2-1 lead, and Luke Marawski connected for a double that plated two more. Borup recorded another RBI for the Wolves' fifth run.

"We got tripped up there in the first, but we settled back in and hit the ball all over the yard," Eastlake coach Frank Smith said. "With Bryce and a three- or four-run lead, there's not a lot you can do with that once he settles himself in."

The Wolves and Spartans will be playing in their first state championship games in either program's history Saturday night.