Despite outhitting Graham-Kapowsin, the Olympia baseball team dropped its first game in almost three weeks as the Bears fell to the Eagles 6-4 at home Tuesday.
The Bears recorded 13 hits in the defeat, compared to eight from Graham-Kapowsin. Olympia left 13 runners on base.
“[Graham-Kapowsin] executed and came up with big hits in big spots. We did not execute,” Olympia head coach Derek Weldon said. “Credit to GK. That’s a good club.”
After the Eagles scored first on a two-out RBI single in the first inning, Olympia’s Braden Barrett drove in the tying run with a double in the second. In the third, Travis Kunkel’s ground ball forced an infield error and scored Noah Miller, giving Oly a 2-1 lead.
Graham-Kapowsin responded with a four spot in the fourth inning, highlighted by a two-run double by Ka’eo Smith. The Bears put two runners on base in the fourth and loaded the bases in the fifth while down by two runs, but they couldn’t bring them around to score.
Olympia finally capitalized with runners in scoring position in the bottom of the sixth. Kunkel produced an RBI on a line-drive single, and Brayden Cheeka added an RBI single of his own to bring Olympia within one run.
Peyton Crass kept the Bears in the game by recording big outs on the mound in the fifth and sixth innings. He finished with nine strikeouts across six frames of work while allowing five runs on eight runs.
Noah Miller relieved him in the seventh inning, and after allowing two batters to reach base, a balk brought a runner home to give the Eagles a 6-4 advantage. He redeemed himself by striking out the last two batters swinging.
Miller, who finished 3 of 4 at the plate, singled with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, hoping to start a rally, but Sawyer Dean struck out for the final out. Dean, Elijah Butler, Cheeka and Barrett each recorded two hits.
Olympia (14-3, 10-3 South Puget Sound League) will get another crack at Graham-Kapowsin (10-5, 10-3 SPSL) Wednesday for a second-place tiebreaker as the regular season’s final full week concludes.
