Prep baseball: W.F. West stifles Tumwater to capture league title

The end goal is not a title in early-May, nor is it a championship in mid-May. What remains the primary goal for the W.F. West High School baseball team is the final victory in late-May.

So when the Bearcats triumphed over Tumwater on Tuesday night, their head coach Jesse Elam needed just two words to sum up his feelings.

“It’s cool,” he stated.

Just like W.F. West has been this spring: Calm, cool and collected.

Hayden Rooney, Connor Coleman and Emmett Goodman combined for a no-hitter and the Bearcats were advantageous early to beat the Thunderbirds 5-1 to secure their first league title in six years.

“These guys deserve it,” Elam said after his initial two words. “It is a step along the way and it is a pretty cool one. What an outstanding (pitching) performance in a giant situation. To have those guys step up, they’re all dudes.”

In that same span, W.F. West (18-2, 13-1 EvCo) has won two Class 2A District 4 titles and finished top-four in the state twice. It has jostled with the Thunderbirds throughout that stretch.

Still, even for the senior class of five that were recognized prior to first pitch, they aren’t taking the accomplishment for granted.

“Getting to this point, being able to overcome that, we can go pretty far,” shortstop Ross Kelley said.

Since losing the first game of the three-game set to the Thunderbirds, W.F. West has reeled off eight straight wins – including the last two versus its rival from South Thurston County.

Errors were a factor in the only two runs on Monday. They were the contributors again on Tuesday.

Two mishaps on the infield by Tumwater (14-6, 12-2) put runners on with one out. A wild pitch, an RBI fielder’s choice by Carlos Vallejo and a single to left-center field by Beckman Dvorak gave the Bearcats a 3-0 lead.

“We showed up and we played our brand of baseball; we played to win,” Elam said.

Three errors in total ended up dooming the Thunderbirds alongside weak contact at the plate to be held to a goose egg in the hit column.

“I felt like we panicked, we got out of our game,” Tumwater head coach Lyle Overbay said. “We’ve done so well on swinging the bat against anybody. We didn;t have it today, that swagger, we got to get that (back).”

Names that weren’t known to the outside last year have become household for W.F. West.

Dvorak only registered 12 at-bats a season ago. Hayden Rooney, a sophomore, didn’t register a varsity start.

Rooney allowed just three runners to reach base in three-plus innings on the mound and Dvorak added his second hit and RBI in the fourth.

“I don’t really think when I hit,” Dvorak said. “Sometimes I overthink it, but being loose, just being yourself up there.”

The best chance for Tumwater came in the sixth.

It drew four consecutive walks against Coleman, the final with the bases loaded and an RBI for Derek Thompson. With the tying run at the plate, Coleman got a groundout to Kelley to get out of the jam.

“I knew that Connor had one more guy,” Kelley said.

“Trying to live one pitch at a time,” Elam added. “He got ahead of himself a little bit; he settled back down and got the job done.”

Kelley added two hits for W.F. West while Deacon Meller scored twice. Thompson and Landon Roy were the lone Tumwater hitters to reach base multiple times.

“We can’t play tentatively,” Overbay said. “This game will eat you alive if you play tentatively.”

Both sides conclude the regular season on Thursday where the Bearcats travel to battle Aberdeen and the T-Birds host Shelton for senior night.