SUMNER — Pressure bursts pipes.
For one week of the 2026 spring season, it appeared pressure was bursting the Olympia Bears’ metaphorical pipes. After a 14-2 start to the campaign, the Bears stumbled with three losses in their next four, coming to a head in a home loss to crosstown rival Capital on April 25.
It was obvious that Olympia had work to do to get the train back on the tracks with the postseason rapidly approaching.
The first step was to lean on the program’s three calling cards that launched the strong start to the season: dominant pitching, lights-out defense, and what the program calls “pressure baseball,” or “small ball,” as other teams often call it.
In their two games in the South Puget Sound League Tournament against Emerald Ridge and Sumner, two programs littered with Division I talent, Olympia indubitably leaned on its signature style and burst some pipes in the process.
One day after holding Emerald Ridge to one hit in the SPSL semifinals, the Olympia Bears shut out Sumner 1-0 Wednesday to win their first ever South Puget Sound League title.
Let’s check on those three calling cards.
Dominant pitching? How about a complete game shutout from sophomore right-hander Landyn Keister, who only allowed three hits against Sumner in its own ballpark and snapped the Spartans’ 40-game scoring streak?
Lights-out defense? Olympia’s defense made all but two of the putouts, with the other two coming via strikeout, and capped off the game with left fielder Brayden Cheeka’s pulchritudinous leaping grab to rob Xander Cypher of a game-tying home run in the bottom of the seventh inning.
And then there’s the art of “pressure baseball.” The Bears perfectly executed the safety squeeze bunt, as Connor Hardy laid down a bunt to score Milo Tolbert for the game’s lone run in the fourth inning. Those three traits paved the way for Olympia to make history in the postseason.
“It’s a heck of an accomplishment for the boys. We had a rough stretch before this week. We did not play well for a four-game stretch,” Olympia head coach Derek Weldon said. “We practiced really, really hard last week and made competing a priority. In the last couple of days, they competed really hard.”
During that grueling week of practice, Weldon and the coaching staff told their team that baseball is a game of moments. Every pitch is a moment, and the game is nothing but a fight to win as many moments as possible.
Keister was victorious in most of his moments on the mound in the league title match. In the first inning, he worked around a walk and finished the frame with a swinging strikeout of Bryce Carl. But Sumner southpaw Brody Santman was winning most of his moments on the mound, as well, retiring the first nine Bears in order.
Sawyer Dean, recently committed to Spokane Falls Community College, doubled to start the top of the fourth inning for the first hit of the game for either team, but he was stranded at second base.
Keister retired seven batters in a row before Wake Forest commit Wyatt Plyler banged a leadoff double to left field to start the bottom of the fourth. Three pitches later, Keister was headed to the dugout with another zero on the scoreboard, as his defense made three outs.
In the fifth inning, it was time for Olympia to ignite “pressure baseball.” Tolbert poked a single to left field to lead off the frame, and Brayden Cheeka followed him with a single to center field. Keister bunted to move the two runners into scoring position and sacrifice his at bat. Hardy, as he has done all season, drove in a run via a sacrifice bunt, this time in a safety squeeze play with Tolbert at third. Santman opted to throw to first base as Tolbert scored.
“That was huge,” Cheeka said of Hardy’s bunt. “It’s the cornerstone of our program, and it’s just huge that we can execute that in the short game.”
Sumner started a two-out rally in the sixth, as Plyler and Jake Miller singled. Olympia had no one warming up in the bullpen, so the job was Keister’s to finish. He struck out Carl swinging for the second time, ending the inning.
“That was huge for us. Seeing no one over there and knowing the coaches had trust in me means a whole lot,” Keister said.
Olympia had a chance to extend its lead in the seventh as Cheeka struck a two-out single for his second hit, but Santman fanned Keister, leaving Cheeka at second.
With Keister still on the bump, three outs away from a league title, Sumner’s 5-6-7 hitters looked to produce just one run to extend the game or two to win it in the bottom of the seventh. Evan Hellner popped out to Cheeka, who didn’t have to move far to catch the ball. Drew Wicklander hit a 3-2 fly ball that Noah Miller snagged with no sweat.
Then stepped Cypher, who, on a 1-1 pitch, cranked a high fly ball to left field. Cheeka, who was initially playing in left center field, rolled to his right toward the warning track, and he jumped to rob what likely would have been a tying home run and end the game. The Bears celebrated by jumping into each other's arms and throwing their gloves into the air as they accomplished a first in program history: an SPSL title.
“As the ball was going up, I thought I was gonna camp under it and it was gonna be an exciting moment where we all run in. But it started to sail over my head, and the fence became a factor as I got closer,” Cheeka said of the heroic catch. “I just did what I’m taught: put my hand out, hope I don’t hit the fence, and then go up for the ball.”
The plan wasn’t initially for Keister to go all seven, Weldon said. Olympia was preparing to throw three different pitchers in an attempt to rattle Sumner’s talented lineup. But as Keister finished his first round through the Spartans batting order, there was no doubt from the coaching staff in his ability to take care of business by himself. He allowed just four baserunners as Sumner was held without a run for the first time since March 25, 2025.
Over the two-game SPSL Tournament, Olympia pitchers Travis Kunkel, Peyton Crass and Keister combined to hold Emerald Ridge and Sumner to a combined four hits and one run while playing both games as the visitor. The Bears also exacted revenge on both teams, as Olympia was shut out by Emerald Ridge 4-0 on April 24 and by Sumner 5-0 on April 3.
“You never know what’s gonna happen going into the game, but I knew that it wasn’t gonna be 5-0,” Keister said. “Huge stakes going into this game. They kicked our ass last time. I knew that we were gonna be fired up and ready to go.”
Next up for Olympia (18-5, 12-4 SPSL) is the district tournament, which begins May 12.
