By John Leggett
Staff Writer
The Sumner High baseball team bolted out of the gate, winning its first four games straight, including a surprising 10-5 defeat of Tahoma High, which finished as one of the top five 4A squads in the state in 2009.
Sumner’s Cameron Steffey, a junior transfer from Emerald Ridge High, pitched well March 12 against the Tahoma Bears as he went six frames, relinquishing only a pair of earned runs.
“We’ve had our share of problems with Tahoma over the years,” admitted Spartan skipper John Welker, “but Steffey had beaten Tahoma last year as a sophomore, when he was still pitching for the Jaguars and he helped us finally get the better of the Bears last week.”
After hosting North Thurston Thursday, and whipping them 7-2 behind a sterling effort on the hill from senior twirler Casey Edwards, it was time for Sumner’s first South Puget Sound League 3A tilt. The Spartans took on last season’s co-SPSL 3A title holder, Enumclaw High, under the Friday night lights of Enumclaw’s Osborne Field.
Again it was Steffey toeing the slab and, just as he had done against Tahoma, the stout righty who is now 2-0 with an earned run average hovering around 2.0, struck out seven opposing batters in six innings as Sumner prevailed 9-2.
Runs were hard to come by, but SHS senior catcher Alex Sloan broke the scoreless tie in the top of third when he clouted a one-out solo home run.
Sumner scored again in the fourth frame, but Enumclaw answered with two runs in the bottom of the fifth to knot the score, before Sumner had a hit parade in the sixth and seventh innings to dash out front 9-2.
Enumclaw looked like it might be mustering a rally in the bottom of the seventh stanza as Steffey began to waver, giving up a walk and two singles. But Brad Falk relieved Steffey and threw a total of a dozen pitches, setting down the top Enumclaw’s order with three straight strikeouts to close out contest.
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