18-05-2025
Peninsula knocks off top-seeded rival Gig Harbor, wins 3A District 3/4 baseball title
Some wins are sweet, others are sweeter. Then there are the sickly, tooth achingly-sweet wins — like Peninsula baseball's 4-2 win over Gig Harbor in the Class 3A District 3/4 championship game at Auburn High School on Saturday afternoon.
Consider this: the schools are crosstown rivals, Gig Harbor had beaten Peninsula in the first meeting this season and the Tides are currently the No. 1 ranked team in the state in the WIAA's latest RPI rankings.
'Feels great,' said Peninsula center fielder Isaac Schultz-Tait, who drove in a pair of runs. 'It's awesome. Feels amazing. Knocked off the No. 1 team in the state.'
Gig Harbor's pitching staff has been lights out all spring, but the Seahawks jumped on the Tides early and often, scoring a run in the first, one in the second and two in the fourth. Peninsula totaled seven hits and drew six walks.
'Just working counts, long (at-bats), trying to get into pitchers' heads, get on in any way possible,' Schultz-Tait said.
Peninsula scored first on a Jonathan Vergara-Dykes single, adding a run in the second on a Schultz-Tait double down on the left field line in the second.
An Ethan Mar single tied the game in the bottom of the third. A Matthew Saunders single and a Schultz-Tait sacrifice fly scored the game's final two runs for the Seahawks.
Bragging rights at the family dinner table will go to Peninsula freshman Daniel Sleeter, who started the game and went three innings for the Seahawks after missing the past month of the season with an injury. Sleeter's dad, Ben, is Gig Harbor's head coach.
'Definitely will be talking about that one tonight,' Daniel Sleeter said, smiling. 'Obviously, we're all friends, us and that team. At the end of the day, it's a crosstown rivalry and it feels great to beat them anytime.'
Peninsula coach Matt Thomas feels his team has momentum heading into the state tournament and hopes the Seahawks have done enough in the eyes of the state seeding committee to have earned a top 12 seed in the state tournament and avoid an early-week play-in game.
'Going into the week, we've beaten the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 7 teams (in the state, per the WIAA's RPI),' Thomas said. 'That proves to me we can go out and beat anybody on any given day. Just hope that keeps us out of a play-in game at state and I don't see why they should put us in one now.'
Either way, it looks like Peninsula is peaking at the right time.
'They're just coming together as a group,' Thomas said. 'We've got nine seniors, two juniors and the rest are sophomores and freshmen. So it's a bit of a learning curve there. If it comes together now, that's the best time.'
