The Tumwater softball team’s state title defense didn’t get off to the start that the Thunderbirds may have been looking for, as Mark Morris came up I-5 and played spoiler in extended fashion, winning 5-4 in nine innings.
After seven innings of play, the two teams were all tied up at 3-3, and after neither could push a run across in the eighth, the umps went to the international tiebreaker, putting a runner on second to begin the top of the ninth.
Mark Morris immediately cashed in on the free runner in scoring position with a Tumwater error, and after a single and a strikeout, the Monarchs scored again on another T-Bird miscue.
Tumwater scored its own auto runner in the bottom half of the frame on a two-out single by Ella Ferguson, but wouldn’t get the second needed to keep the game going.
Ferguson went the distance in the circle for the Thunderbirds, striking out 23 Monarchs and giving up four runs — three earned — on six hits and a pair of walks. After MM took a 3-0 lead after four innings, she put up four straight zeroes, allowing Tumwater to come back with two runs in the bottom of the sixth and another in the seventh.
Aside from Ferguson, Kylie Waltermeyer, Megan Barrett, and Jaime Haase were the only T-Birds to get into the hit column.
Tumwater will get the second of three straight matchups against 2A GSHL foes Friday when it goes south to Ridgefield.
