By John Leggett

Staff Writer

It is hard to moan when your ball club is sporting a front-running 4-0 South Puget Sound League 3A mark, but one has to imagine if Sumner High baseball coach John Welker had his way, his crew might be displaying a little smoother glove play on defense.

The Spartan wrecking crew outscored their three league opponents 44-6 last week, but also committed an average of three errors per encounter.

After blanking Peninsula 10-0, then pulverizing Clover Park 27-2, the SHS nine rolled out the red carpet for the Auburn Mountainview Lions, last year’s SPSL 3A co-champions.

Cameron Steffey, who has already accrued a 3-0 record to go along with his nearly invisible earned-run average, got the starting nod against the Lions and was in cruise control until the Panthers began to self-destruct.

By the top of the seventh inning, Spartan batters had been plunked seven times, which caused hard feelings in the bleachers and prompted at least two verbal warnings by umpires, but consequently helped SHS amass a 7-2 advantage as there were also some hits sprinkled in along the way.

Steffey toiled seven full frames, relinquished only two earned runs, gave up six hits, struck out eight, had no walks and hit one AMHS batter.