Tumwater softball mixes youth, experience, homegrown talent and transfers

It looked extremely rocky for the T-Bird nine Wednesday. The score stood 5-4 with but two innings left to play.

When the first two batters grounded out and the third merely walked, it looked as if sixth place Centralia might finish the game on top.

But this wasn’t a fictional poem about an overconfident slugger. A different mythical power was at work, the Tumwater High School softball team’s belief in its own sixth inning magic.

As she walked past the stands to coach first base before the frame, T-Bird assistant coach Kaci Anchors greeted a reporter, saying “this is our inning, we always come through in the sixth.”

Sure enough, Tumwater shortstop Aly Waltermeyer doubled into the gap, plating the tying run. Her double play partner, second baseman Jaylene Manriquez, then slammed a line drive home run over the right field fence to give the T-Birds a 7-5 lead pitcher Ella Ferguson made stand up in the top of the seventh.

“We’re gritty,” said fifth-year Tumwater head coach Ashley Lupinski, known before her recent marriage as Ashley Andrews. “When it’s a tie ballgame or we’re down, we find a way. The grit of this team is unmatchable.”

The sequence against Centralia summed up the ways Tumwater, 10-1 overall and currently fourth-ranked in the WIAA’s RPI, has grabbed a one-game lead in the loss column in the 2A Evergreen Conference over seventh-ranked W.F. West.

Tumwater hosts W.F. West on Monday afternoon at 4:30 p.m.

Waltermeyer, who transferred last spring from Olympia, is hitting .610 with 13 runs batted in and 18 runs scored. Manriquez, a transfer from Gahr High School in Southern California, is the T-Birds power source, hitting .381 with eight home runs and 22 RBI. Both are seniors.

“Aly is our biggest leader,” said Lupinski. “She physically leads us, and she has such a sound mind. She’s a student of the game.”

Waltermeyer is part of an interesting sister act. Junior Kylie is on the softball team but doesn’t quite equal Aly’s stats after a basketball season in which Kylie was a mainstay in leading the T-Birds to a state tournament berth and Aly came off the bench.

She’ll play for NCAA Division I University of the Pacific next season. This season’s Tumwater team has been special, according to Waltermeyer.

“The dynamic is amazing,” she said. “We’ve got great athletes. The atmosphere is super welcoming. Our bond is just different.”

Waltermeyer has stuck to the basics to get 25 hits in 41 at bats.

“I keep it simple,” she said. “When I try too hard it never works out in my favor.”

She wants to increase confidence before getting to UOP, located in Stockton, California.

“I sometimes lack confidence if I make an error or if I don’t have the greatest at bat. I need to realize my ability is what it is,” she said.

Manriquez will also play at the next level in 2023, for Edmonds Community College.

“Jaylene is a constant for us. She crushes the ball every game,” said Lupinski.

Though she leads the T-Birds in homers, Manriquez says she doesn’t swing for the fences.

“I go for line drives and try to clear any runners off the bases,” she said. Recently moved to second base from the left side of the infield, Manriquez wants to improve her defense before college and sees the move as a chance to learn.

She’s noticed, as any Southern Californian would, the difference in weather from Cerritos to Tumwater.

“It sucks when you’re mentally prepared throughout the day to play and the game is rained out,” she said. “In California, you’re prepared and the game usually is played.”

Another senior standout for Tumwater has been rightfielder Jaylen Latchaw, who missed several recent games with COVID. She’s hitting .513 with two home runs and 16 RBI.

“Jaylen brings the light, the laughter when things get too serious,” said Lupinski.

For all the dangerous senior hitters, Tumwater relies on newcomers in its battery.

Tumwater’s pitching duo of Ferguson, who pitched back to back shutouts in a doubleheader at Shelton on Friday, and Hailey Stewart are freshmen. So is catcher Jaime Haase, who sports the T-Birds’ gaudiest slash line at .706/.737/1.029.

“It’s been a really interesting year,” said Lupinski, who’s never coached a team relying solely on frosh hurlers. “They’re both still learning a lot about the game; instead of just throwing, learning how to pitch. There’s an art to that.

“Hailey has a lot of pitches. Ella throws hard. She’s competitive. She wants to win every single time she takes the mound.”

Manriquez said the seniors appreciate the young pitchers.

“The freshmen came in and did what they had to do. It doesn’t matter if you a freshman or a sophomore. If you’re good, the team knows,” she said.

“They earned our confidence from the day they walked in here,” added Waltermeyer, who plays in the same club program, Oregon-based Northwest Bullets, as Ferguson.

Lupinski coached Tumwater to a fourth place finish the last time the 2A state tournament was played, in 2019, but with few returners from that team the T-Birds focus has been on the immediate task.

“We haven’t really talked about state,” she said. “We have some league goals. We know if we meet those goals, we’ll get to districts and go from there. But any high school girl is going to want to go to state, so of course we’re motivated to get there.”

Manriquez confirmed that motivation.

“We’re so excited, so pumped up to keep driving, push on the pedal and keep going to state,” she said.

Waltermeyer thinks increased communication between players can help the T-Birds get there.

“In a lot of our games, we’ve had dominant pitching or dominant hitting, but when games are close we’re going to need better communication,” she said.

This story was originally published May 3, 2022 at 5:00 AM.