It’s not yet panic time for the Kentwood High baseball team.
But after Saturday’s 10-6 loss to Puyallup in the South Puget Sound League championship game, there is some head scratching going around.
Despite home runs from Austin Voth, Taylor White and Bryant VanEngelenburg, the sixth-ranked Conquerors were unable to overcome a fast start by the No. 1 Vikings.
It was Kentwood’s third-straight loss, which also happens to be the team’s first losing streak of the season.
Panic?
Not the Conquerors.
“We’re not ready to panic yet and I don’t think there’s going to be a time when we do panic,” said coach Jon Aarstad. “This team knows it’s good and has the ability to beat anybody and we’re going to go out and give it everything we’ve got.”
Despite the loss, Kentwood will take the SPSL’s No. 2 seed into the district tournament. The Conquerors face Olympia (14-5), the Narrows League No. 2 seed, at 11 a.m. on Saturday (May 15) at Heritage Park in Puyallup in a winner-to-state game. If Kentwood falls to Olympia, it will get another shot at a state berth in a later game on Saturday. The Conquerors have advanced to the state tournament in five of the last six seasons.
The three-game losing streak, which included losses to Tahoma (14-4), Jefferson (6-2) and now Puyallup, is Kentwood’s longest in more than two years. The difference between those three games and how the rest of the Kentwood season has played out is clear, Aarstad said, as the Conquerors have fallen behind early in each game.
“I talked to the kids about coming out strong,” Aarstad said. “I felt we lost those three games in the beginning (of the game). It’s tough to come back from getting down in the first inning.”
The Conquerors got down to Tahoma 5-0 in the first inning and fell behind Jefferson 2-0 after the first frame.
Puyallup (19-2) kept that trend going on Saturday, jumping on Kentwood ace Austin Voth for three runs in the first inning and adding two more in the third to take a 5-1 lead.
The Conquerors got to within a run at 5-4 in the sixth inning after solo home runs from Voth and White.
Puyallup put the game away with five runs in the top of the seventh inning. Puyallup started the rally on a solo home run by Matt Becker.
Despite the loss, there were plenty of positives to take from the game, Aarstad noted.
“Defensively, I think it might have been our best game of the season,” the coach said. “We had our chances. The nice thing about it is that we kept fighting and fighting. We had our chances to win.”
Kentwood opened the season on a 15-game winning streak.
”If anything, we might be pressing a little bit right now,” Aarstad said.
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