On Friday in Chehalis, Tumwater’s Derek Thompson gave up a single to the second batter he faced and then walked the following hitter. With two on and just one out, W.F. West had the opportunity to get to Thompson and grab an early lead.
Thompson didn’t let that happen. He got a double play to get out of the jam, and then he allowed just two more hits over the next six innings to polish off a complete-game shut out.
“When he’s getting ahead, he’s even tougher to hit,” Tumwater coach Lyle Overbay said. “You wanna set the tone, so it was good to see … It’s just a matter of him believing that and doing that. He’s lethal, and it’s fun to watch.”
Tumwater gave him plenty of run support in the middle innings, and the T-Birds left Chehalis with a 7-0 victory. It’s W.F. West’s first EvCo loss of the season, and it puts Tumwater in sole possession of first place as the conference’s last unbeaten team.
It didn’t take the T-Birds long to take the lead after the inning-ending double-play in the first. Cody Lambert hit a two-out, two-run double in the second, and Thompson scored on an error in the third.
It was one of four errors that the Bearcats committed on the day, and it led to three unearned Tumwater runs.
“We lost the free pass war,” W.F. West coach Jesse Elam. “We were throwing in pressure innings every single inning, and they weren’t … Baseball is a very humbling experience a lot of times, and it’s a heartbreaking game.”
The T-Birds didn’t make things easy on Connor Coleman, grinding out multiple long at-bats and drawing four walks in his four-plus innings of work.
“We stuck to our strengths,” Overbay said. “We were getting our pitch to hit, and the tough pitches, we were not gonna swing at them early. Our at-bats were tough outs, and that’s tough on a pitcher.”
Tumwater tacked on three more runs in the fifth, and Thompson continued to cruise on the bump.
After allowing the single in the first, he didn’t allow another hit until Weston Potter and Carlos Vallejo reached on back-to-back singles to lead off the seventh.
Like the first inning, Thompson worked out of it, striking out two of the next three batters and getting another to ground into a fielder’s choice to end it.
“The fastball command was one of the biggest things,” Thompson said. “If I can command the fastball, the offspeed is gonna work. And then if I can throw the offspeeds for a strike, we’re gonna have a good day.”
He was quick to give credit to his teammates, who gave him plenty of run support and made several solid plays behind him in the field.
“I’m just proud of the team,” Thompson said. “I feel like they really came together … We made the plays when we needed to, and we played really well.”
Lambert finished 2 for 3, including his two-run double, while Jimmy Womach, Braeden Konrad, and Charlie Crawford each drove in a run.
Potter, Vallejo, and Deacon Meller collected W.F. West’s three hits. Grady Westlund pitched the final three innings, allowing just one hit without allowing a run.
Elam is looking forward to Tuesday, when the Bearcats (10-2, 5-1 2A EvCo) will head to Aberdeen.
“This can go one of two ways,” Elam said. “We can continue to fricking work our butts off and get better, or we can start feeling down in the dumps about ourselves … I’m not worried about us. We’ll be fine.”
Tumwater (8-4, 6-0 2A EvCo) will also be back on Tuesday, when Shelton comes to town.
“I just love where we’re at,” Overbay said. “I think the biggest thing is just playing the way we do. We play our game, we’re gonna be competitive and surprise a lot of people.”
