Tahoma softball survives scare, rallies late to stay unbeaten
The Tahoma High School softball team was so uncharacteristic offensively and defensively that coach Tom Milligan was pondering what superstitious forces were at play.
The undefeated reigning Class 4A state champions were losing and had committed four errors — while a Tahoma offense that had scored double-digit runs in all but one game had scored just one entering the fifth inning.
“Is there a full moon? Is there fog rolling in? Today was something atypical of our behavior,” Milligan said. “I hope that is something we can clean up.”
All that and Tahoma cruised at the end for a 10-5 road victory over Todd Beamer on Friday and improved to 15-0.
Even when it’s not going good for the Bears, it’s still going pretty good.
“They’re solid — top to bottom,” Beamer coach Brian Hering said. “They’re just a quality program. Tom does a great job.”
The play of the game came with the bases loaded in the top of the fifth. The Titans were clinging to a 2-1 lead when Claire Phillips sent a fly ball to Jourdin Hering in center field.
Hering caught it, hit Alex Haven on the relay home and she had Kinzi Sanders dead to rights at second base for what would have been the third out of the inning. Haven, who had pitched great to that point, had her throw to second base sail just out of the reach of shortstop Raelyn Gradel, allowing Sanders to advance to third and Carley Nance to score as Tahoma regained a 3-2 lead.
“I think at some point we were just like ‘OK, it’s not fun to do this. Let’s hit the ball,’ ” Nance said. “Once we hit the ball, we were like ‘Oh, that’s not too hard. Let’s keep that going.’
It also extended the inning and Tahoma tacked on two more runs with two out. Then it scored three in the top of the sixth and two in the seventh for a 10-2 advantage.
“It’s 2-2 going into the sixth if we get that out, and if we get one more timely hit, all of the sudden something is happening,” Brian Hering said. “We know we can play with them. I think this helps us going forward. We battled like I knew we could.”
Kenzie Palmer was 3 for 4 with two doubles for Beamer (9-7; 8-6 4A SPSL North).
Tahoma (15-0, 13-0 4A SPSL North) is three games ahead of Federal Way (10-3, 10-3) in the division standings.
TJ Cotterill: 253-597-8677, @tjcotterill
This story was originally published April 23, 2016 at 11:49 AM with the headline "Tahoma softball survives scare, rallies late to stay unbeaten."