TUMWATER — Rain could only delay the biggest series in the 2A EvCo this season so long. But as the precipitation fell and Tuesday bled into Wednesday, then into Thursday, the tension only grew, as Tumwater and W.F. West pushed back their games, canceled multiple times, and briefly considered moving the whole thing to Shelton.
But Friday, the skies cleared, and the battle between the Bearcats and T-Birds finally got to go down. And Tumwater took advantage, rolling behind an Alex Overbay gem to a 10-0 win in six innings.
“You could see the guys were hungry,” Tumwater coach Lyle Overbay said. “Tuesday, Wednesday, they were hungry and you could see the disappointment. But they were still focused, so that was encouraging.”
After four days of waiting for the chance to play, Alex Overbay mowed through the W.F. West order the first time through and never slowed down. The senior UNLV commit only needed 86 pitches to get through six innings, striking out 11.
Weston Potter singled to lead off the top of the fourth to break up Overbay’s no-hit bid, and the Bearcats ended up loading the bases with one out, but Overbay got out of it with a strikeout and an easy groundout, and would let a runner reach scoring position again.
“I felt like he was throwing his curveball for a strike and controlling it,” Lyle Overbay said. “Late in the count, he was able to bury it and do those kinds of things to get that swing and miss.”
The senior hasn’t allowed an earned run since March 21, a streak that’s up to 17 innings now. After a junior season working behind Tumwater’s trio of Division I pitchers, Overbay’s stepped into the role of an ace for the T-Birds.
“He had a good offseason, where he was really focused doing his things to set himself up, because he knew that if we’re going to have success, he’d have to have success,” Lyle Overbay said. “He took it very seriously, and Blake (Smith), Jordan (Hanson), Ryan (Orr), those guys set him up, because they showed him what he needed to do.”
On the other side of the field, W.F. West’s Hunter Lutman had a harder time finding the zone on the hill. Tumwater took advantage of three walks in the first inning to take a two-run lead, then added on in the third with back-to-back walks followed by an error on a sacrifice bunt.
“He gets a lot of swings and misses on not-strikes,” Lyle Overbay said. “We did a real good job laying off (balls). It’s easier said than done, but we worked on it; we actually had a couple more days to work on it. We laid off the high fastball, and he wasn’t locating his slider for a strike until the third or fourth inning, so we were able to see spin and be able to shut that down and not have to swing at it.”
Lutman finished with four strikeouts and only one hit allowed, but walked nine and hit one, getting seven runs charged to his name. Tumwater ended up scoring in every inning save the second, and forced Lutman out after three free passes and an error set up a five-spot in the fifth.
“Walks will kill you, and they did,” WFW coach Jesse Elam said. “A lot of those came around to score.”
Waylen Land got W.F. West the rest of the day, allowing a solo home run to Eddie Marson in the fifth and an RBI single by Liam Karlson to make it a 10-run game and end it in the sixth.
Marson went 2 for 2 with a pair of walks, and scored three runs. Kyler Collier added a 2-RBI double and drew two walks himself. Briar Finney only went 1 for 1 but drove in three runs.
W.F. West and Tumwater were set to face off in Chehalis late Saturday morning.
