ESN Wednesday Re-Cap: PCL Track Championships, Baseball T-Birds Clinch, Hoops E-C Rolls in Metro

2/28/2021

ESN covered Day 1 of the PCL Track and Field Championships from Mount Tahoma High School on Wednesday. (See our separate story on the PCL Track and Field for full results and videos.) We also called the final regular season baseball game for the Tumwater T-Birds who needed to win for the #1 seed into the EVCO 2A League and District Tournament and another night of Metro League hoops with Eastside Catholic hosting Cleveland.

PCL Track and Field Championships

(Tacoma, WA) The 3A Pierce County Track and Field Championships began on Wednesday, it was day 1 of 2 at Mount Tahoma stadium. The 7 teams, Bonney Lake, Lakes, Lincoln, Mount Tahoma, Spanaway Lake, Stadium and Wilson competed in half of the events on day 1 and will complete the meet on Friday.

On Day 1 the field events that were completed included the girls Javelin, Shot Put, High Jump and Triple Jump. The Girls running events were the 4×200 relay, 100m low hurdles, 100m dash, 1600m run, 4×100 relay and the 400m dash.

For the boys they competed in the Discus, Long Jump and Pole Vault and in the running events the 110m hurdles, 100m dash, 1600m run, 4×100 relay and 400m dash.

A few of the highlights on day 1 for the girls began with Wilson’s 4×200 relay win posting a 1:50.27 winning time edging out the Lakes team by a little more than a 1/10th of a second. Mount Tahoma’s Morgan Little sprinted away with the 100m dash in a time of 12.18, Lincoln’s Jaleigha Robinson taking the High Jump being the only one to clear 4’8″ and Spanaway Lake took the 4×100 relay.

Boys highlights began with Bonney Lake’s Thomas Drenkel winning the Discus by more than 10 feet with a toss of 129-04, Wilson’s Jaylen McCabe blistering the field in the 110 Hurdles by nearly 2 seconds stopping the clock at 15.49 and the race of the day the boys 1600 saw Stadium’s Jacob Alfonso edge Lake’s Cruize Corvin by 1/100th of a second with a winning time of 4:19.31.

Day 2 is set for Friday and look for our separate story on the Pierce County League Track Meet with videos of all races and full results of all events.

Baseball
Tumwater 7, Centralia 2

(Centralia, WA) The Tumwater T-Birds needed a win to guarantee a tie with WF West for 1st place in the EVCO 2A league. They got the job done with a win on the road and WF West also won beating Black Hills 5-0 and both teams finish 11-1 in league play tying for the league title. However, the #1 seed and the bye that goes with it is Tumwater’s based on the tie-breaker criteria. You have to go down the list a little bit but the one in favor of the T-Birds is the run differential in head-to-head match-ups and in this case WF West beat Tumwater 2-1 in their first game and Tumwater beat WF West in their second match-up 4-0 for an overall 5-2 advantage. The full League/District Tournament schedule should be released on Thursday or Friday.

Back to the game that may have clinched the #1 seed for Tumwater. In the 2nd inning the T-Birds struck first when Alex Overbay sac flied Connor Bourbon home for the run. In the top of the 3rd with 2 out and Jack Jones now on 2nd base Camden Oram drills an RBI double down the right field line an opposite field hit to make it 2-0. Grady Finney would add another run with an RBI single and it was now 3-0 heading into the bottom of the 3rd.

Noah Aliff led off the bottom of the 4th for the Tigers with a triple and was knocked in on a ground out from Cameron Erickson to make it 3-1. The triple by Aliff also broke up Ryan Orr’s no hitter for Tumwater. Paris Chavez then doubled with 1 out and would score when a wild pitch ended up in the T-Bird dugout so by rule he gets the base he would have advanced too but since the ball is now dead you also get one more base which scored Chaves and it was now 3-2 T-Birds lead as they headed into the top of the 5th.

In the top of the 5th the T-Birds would add to their lead, with runners on 2nd and 3rd a ground ball from Finney knocked in a run to go up 4-2. They would then load the bases with one out in the top of the 6th with Cody Whalen at the plate and flew out to right knocking in a run to make it 5-2.

The final 2 runs were driven in by Camden Oram with a single to right field. The 2nd run came across the plate just prior to Oram getting tagged out to end the inning but the damage was done and the T-Birds finished off the game with the win.

Our Pacific Sports Spa player of the game for the visiting T-Birds was Ryan Orr who was the starting pitcher and limited the T-Birds to just 2 hits and our Thorbeckes home team player of the game went to Paris Chavez.

Video Highlights (Garrett Spivey)

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Camden Oram with an RBI Double against Centralia
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Noah Aliff with a lead off triple for the Tigers
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Paris Chavez doubles for the Tigers
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Altho tagged out Camden Oram drives in 2 more runs for the T-Birds

Girls Basketball
Eastside Catholic 53, Cleveland 8

(Sammamish, WA)

In the opening game of another Metro League double header, the Cleveland Eagles were on the road to take on the Crusaders of Eastside Catholic in girls basketball action. Unfortunately, the Crusaders came out as the aggressor and made the game a bit of a runaway from the tip.

Several turnovers by the Eagles led to easy transition baskets for EC and allowed them to build up a healthy 18-5 lead after the first quarter. That defense became even tougher to deal with as the Crusaders only allowed 2 more points in the second quarter and added 15 more on their tally to get the 33-6 advantage.

The standout of the first half was easily Izzy Sullivan for EC. She had 18 of her 23 total points in the first 8 minutes of the game and showed off her wheels as she pilled up the fast break lay ups.

The second half was a bit of a cruise control one as Cleveland was still not able to find the bottom of the net despite a valiant effort by Rachel Bush (4 points). Along with Koko Eltom and Cece Davis, only 3 players were able to score for the Eagles in the game.

Pairing nicely with the performance by Sullivan, was that of Bella Titialii. The freshman looked anything but, as she was the second leading scorer in the game with 10 and was tenacious on the boards. The two helped put the game away as the Crusaders got the 53-8 win.

Video Highlights (Brandon Brown)

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Cleveland's Davis with a nice bucket and drew the foul
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E-C drains a 3 in the 3rd to give them a 30 point lead

Boys Basketball
Eastside Catholic 88, Cleveland 46

(Sammamish, WA)

Game two was a showcase of pure athleticism on both sides of the ball. Eastside Catholic was all over the place defensively, and much like their girls’ team, were able to convert turnovers to easy transition baskets.

James Laurence was close to unstoppable early as he had 9 points on three 3’s made in the first quarter and added 8 more in the second. Bennett Olujic was also a man on a mission scoring 12 early points.

Parker Baumann, a sophomore guard for the Eagles, came out of the gate swinging showing off his touch inside and out. He and ‘Peanut’ Harvey both had solid outputs in the opening 16 minutes as they scored a combined 16 points. Unfortunately, only 3 other points were scored by the team and Cleveland went into the break down 49-19.

The second half became a vertical affair as both players were attacking the rim and trying to dunk over anybody in their path. At one point, Isaac Ticeson flew and finished the flush over an Eagle defender, but the official called it as a charge taking the points off the board. That did get the limited capacity crowd on their feet though.

Jacob Cofie was the man who put the game out of reach as his 14 second half points were too much to handle and the Crusaders finished off the Wednesday sweep, winning big over Cleveland.

Video Highlights (Brandon Brown)