FORKS SOFTBALL: Spartans return most of their players from team that finished fourth at state

FORKS — All the Forks softball team had to do was just get out of its own league and out of its district to show the teams from around the state what it can accomplish.

The Spartans have the misfortune to be in one of the toughest 1A softball leagues in the entire state. Teams from the Evergreen 1A League have played in the 1A championship game for six straight years with Montesano winning it all in 2019, 2017 and 2015 and Elma winning it all in 2014. Elma was the state runner-up in 2018 and Montesano the state runner-up in 2016.

Add to that a very good team in Hoquiam that was third in the state in 2017 and second in 2015, you can see what Forks has been up against in the Evergreen 1A League the past several years.

This year, the Spartans went just 2-6 in league and finished in fourth place behind Montesano, Elma and Hoquiam. Fortunately, four teams from the Evergreen 1A League qualified for postseason.

But, the Forks girls showed that all those tough games and all that heartbreak the past several years was just making them better. The Spartans qualified for state by winning two games at the Southwest District 4 tournament. The only teams that beat them were Castle Rock out of the Tri-Co League and Elma.

Then, once they got to state, the Forks girls showed just how tough the Evergreen 1A League is. And how good they were.

“We had never been there before,” said coach Dennis Dean Jr. “No one knew who we were, but we already had an aura.”

Dean said teams from around the state knew about the dominance of the Evergreen 1A League and in the Southwest District, so they knew Forks had to be pretty good just to even be there.

The Spartans showed that their 2-6 record was misleading their performance at district was no fluke with three wins at state. Forks made it all the way to the state semifinals and finished a solid fourth in the state.

Dean said the team wasn’t really better than last year, they just won some games in the postseason that the Spartans were never able to before.

“The team last year was just as good as the team this year,” Dean said. That 2018 team couldn’t get out of the exceedingly difficult Southwest District tournament.

At the state tournament, the Spartans crushed Lynden Christian 5-0 and Cle Elum 12-1 to get to the state semifinals, where they lost 4-3 to Castle Rock. That was the one game Dean felt bad about because he felt that was a game the Spartans could have won. Castle Rock went on to lose to Montesano 5-4 in the state championship game.

That’s how close the Spartans came to winning the state championship. They finished the season with a 14-12 record.

In their state finale in the third-fourth game, the Spartans lost 11-2 to Warden. Dean said Warden was an exceptionally fast team and that Forks had never seen that kind of speed before.

“That’s the toughest team we’ve played all year. They had six left-handed hitters,” he said.

Still, three wins at state and five wins total in the postseason marked the most successful year in softball for the Spartans in many years. Dean was optimistic about the future of the team, with only two starters — Britney Dean and Julia Lausche — graduating.

“I’m hoping it might get some younger girls excited to play softball and we can get bigger numbers,” Dean said.

Most of the team’s starters will be back — Chloe Leverington, Rian Peters, Natalie Lausche and Jayden Olson among them. Dean said Leverington will likely become a full-time pitcher and that one the biggest challenges for the team next year will be finding a new third baseman.

Dean also said that the softball team’s success seemed to be part of Forks’ overall great success this year. The Spartans won league championships in boys soccer and boys basketball and finished third in the state in wrestling.

“Our sports programs are firing a little bit,” he said.