SPANAWAY--Thomas Jefferson played a couple close games and lost both -- first, to Tahoma, 12-9, and then to Kentwood, 3-2 -- in fastpitch action at the West Central District III Tournament at Sprinker Recreation Center Friday.

There was a lot of emotion early on against Tahoma, and the runs that piled up early in their favor led to a big lead. Players like Hannah Kiyohara, Erin Fujita and Jayme Carbon were on the fence and cheering for their teammates.

'Let's go," they said. And "yeah, way to go" was an operative four words said.

TJ scored two runs in the bottom of the first inning and scored another two in the third inning to lead 4-0 over Tahoma's Bears. Starting with the first, Stephanie Ogle drew a walk. Senior Erin Fujita, walked, too, and sophomore Christie Bruin got the first hit of the game, singling in Ogle. Fujita stole home after that and it was 2-0. Melissa Kiyohara doubled after that but that was all for that inning for the Raiders.

Leading 2-0, in the third, it was TJ again on the offensive, adding to their lead. Ogle again walked with her at-bat.

Fujita doubled her in and Bruin too got another RBI hit to make it 4-0, TJ.

In the sixth inning after Tahoma had made it a 6-4 game in the top of the fourth and fifth, two runs in the fourth and two runs in the fifth, TJ battled back to score two runs to tie it. Carbon doubled and Becky Gasca, and, Cassidy DeWaele and Shawntay Thong got in on the act with hits and walks and when the smoke cleared from a Sara Byrne single and a few walks it was 8-6, TJ, after the sixth.

Things looked good until Tahoma came back next inning with five runs to be ahead 11-8. TJ would score one run in its bottom half of the seventh inning via a Kiyohara hit, a Carbon walk, and a DeWaele RBI. But two runs down would be as close as the Raiders would get.

Against Kentwood, the Raiders just seemed to be playing on empty a lot of the time. There was not the banter that was present in the exciting Tahoma game.

The energy level, despite it not being there, was still good enough, was rewarded by Kentwood fielding errors. It was good enough for TJ to get a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the third as Jessica Dickson pitched well on the mound at the same time.

Starting off the third, the first batter, Sara Byrne, did hit the ball hard but the shortstop misplayed it and it was an error . After an out to the pitcher and a strikeout for the next two TJ batters, the next batter, Shawntay Thong, again hit the ball hard but to the shortstop of KW, who missed a second chance of fielding a ball to her cleanly. Byrne scored and it was 1-0 TJ. Kiyohara then hit the ball up the middle on a hop, or two, and it rolled into shallow cente rfield, scoring Thong, 2-0.

KW scored after first was a single, in the bottom of the fourth inning, was a hit to shortstop, Kiyohara, pulling Ogle off the bag. And, it's too bad it wasn't short-hopped instead. Because Ogle never missed catching it, she rarely missed bad throws to her either it's fair to say. And, Kiyohara, hard to fault her, can't really. She got every ball hit to her and throwing strikes to Ogle for outs, more 6-3 outs (shorstop to first base) than any other way.

But that error by Kiyohara allowed the runner to score and make it 2-1.

Kentwood then scored on a couple singles in the bottom of the fifth to make it a new ballgame, 2-2.

TJ went down in order, 1,2,3, quick outs, and then it was Kentwood's turn to try and win it in the bottom of the sixth. But, Dickson, who at one point this season had won 17 straight games, or something commendable like that, in leading her team to this point, as a junior, shut them down, 1,2,3.

TJ tried another time, with only six more at-bats in their season, if they lost. So, things looked good when there was another good hit up the middle by Kiyohara in that inning, the top of the sixth. That was followed by a fielding error by KW to get Kiyohara to third base. That set up a chance for something. And the chance coach Fahnlander took was a "suicide squeeze." That is where a runner, in this case, Kiyohara, would be running in to home no matter what on a bunt attempt from the teammate at the plate. Kiyohara ran off and the ball was missed in the bunt so she was not out because it was a foul ball, luckily for TJ. But Fahnlander thought it well to try a second bunt and maybe catch KW off guard. Thinking they would not try to do a suicide squeeze now that KW was on to them. But try the TJ coach did and it failed as the next pitch was purposefully thrown way high so that the batter could not realistically get the bat on the ball, but she still tried and in came Kiyohara to the plate. And she was tagged out.

Then Kentwood came up and scored, doing the fundamental thing that fastpitch teams do in a tight game. The first batter bunted herself aboard with a clean single and then the next batter got a game-winning RBI single, then and there, to make this season for TJ history.

But a good season it was. The Raiders beat Kentwood, a stalwart that won districts last year and placed at state. And then they also were third place this past year in the South Puget Sound League Tournament.