A hard luck Sumner High boys basketball club couldn’t find its groove in its first South Puget Sound League 2A contest, a Jan. 4 road rendezvous at Fife, and suffered a disheartening 50-39 setback despite a 22-point output by junior post Zeb Glissmeyer.

The purple and gold came roaring back to take it all out on Washington in the Patriots’ gymnasium Friday, routing their hosts 76-22.

The Spartans’ predominantly junior-based offensive thrust got its swerve on it spades, as Joey Kendal scored 14 points, Tyler Salisbury added 12 and both Dan DeVries and Glissmeyer added 10.

Unlike in the woeful Fife meeting, Sumner had accumulated an enormous 48-18 upper hand by intermission and put it in automatic pilot the rest of the way against the struggling 2-8 Patriots.

After dropping a triad of close and disappointing league meetings as well as several nonleague cliffhangers, the triumph over Washington improved Sumner’s league mark to 1-3 and 5-4 overall.