TACOMA — “They came to play. Typically we jump out early on teams. They flipped the script,” said Marysville-Pilchuck baseball coach Kurt Koshelnik.

The Tahoma Bears led off the first-round state tournament game with a home run and added three more runs in the first inning, en route to eliminating the Tomahawks 8-1 from the 4A baseball tournament May 23 at Heidelberg Park.

Usually a hard-hitting team, the Tomahawks struggled to put together the hits they needed. There were a few scattered hits — Tyler Holm doubled in the top of the third, Devin Peterson in the fourth — but it took Kyle Pace’s double over the head of the Tahoma left fielder to give the Tomahawks the one run they’d score. By that time, the Bears, ranked No. 2 in a state poll, had scored seven runs on M-P.

Batting sixth, Pace’s RBI demonstrated the depth of the Tomahawk lineup.

‘What we’ve done, how we’ve played, the whole dugout knew we weren’t out of it,” Koshelnik said.

Junior Brennen Steinbaugh started the game and M-P got a strong performance out of his reliever, junior Kyle Van-Dalen. It was the right-handed pitcher’s first varsity pitching experience. With junior Matt Cooper injured and sophomore Jake Thomas hoping to start the day’s later game, Koshelnik called up the guy who had helped lead the junior varsity team, having never seen him pitch before.

Van-Dalen, Cooper, Thomas and Steinbaugh all return next year to fill out the Tomahawk dugout, leading a large returning junior class.

The team loses four senior starters — first baseman Peterson, third baseman Holm, right fielder Levi Cartas and shortstop Steven Shane.