Recognition in high school baseball comes with wins in May, not March and April.
The Union Titans do not need to have their season validated by any state poll, by what others think of them.
They already have validated themselves, in fact. They have earned their first banner.
A year after finishing third in the Class 3A Greater St. Helens League, then coming up a win short of becoming the third team from the league to make it to the state semifinals, the Titans moved to the 4A GSHL and earned a league co-championship.
More importantly for the Titans, they secured the No. 1 seed by taking two of three games from co-champion Skyview. That gave the Titans an automatic pass to the bi-district tournament, the beginning of what they hope will be another playoff surge.
Union will open the bi-district tournament with a May 10 game at Propstra Stadium against the No. 2 team from the South Puget Sound League.
No matter what happens the rest of May, Union has accomplished its first goal.
“It means a lot to be able to hang a banner under the baseball sign in the gym,” Union coach Tom Lampkin said, referring to the first league championship in the program’s four seasons.
It does not matter to the Titans that they ended up tied with Skyview, that they lost a few non-league games along the way. Those defeats might have taken them out of consideration for the popularity contests, but they did not take them out of the playoffs.
If there is one team that fully comprehends the fact that the rankings mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, it is this one.
Caleb Whalen and Skyler Frasier were on the Union boys basketball team that went from “Who-are-they?” status to state champions after one special week in the Tacoma Dome in 2010. About a month earlier, after one loss at regionals dropped Clint Coulter in the state wrestling rankings, Coulter dominated the dome to win a state championship.
“No one remembers who was ranked first in state,” Coulter said. “They remember who won state.”
Not that the Titans would turn away from any praise. They see what Camas is doing in Class 3A, with its undefeated record and top ranking. The Titans just understand that whether they are No. 1 in Class 4A or an also-ran, every team starts from scratch come playoff time.
“Last year, we took out the No. 1 seed,” Whalen recalled.
Union’s run ended with a tough loss in the state quarterfinals, a game played under terrible conditions — a messy field and bad weather. While both teams had to endure, the Titans believed then, and still do, that under a better set of circumstances, they would have joined Camas and Columbia River among the GSHL teams at Safeco Field for the final four.
“I think all the guys were pretty upset the way that turned out,” Lampkin said. “We feel like we had one of the best couple of teams in the state. We had as good as athletes, as good a team, as anybody in the state last year. To have it end that way was upsetting.”
The Titans are not dwelling on the past. They are using the past to remember what it was like to lose, to fall short of their own expectations.
“It just kind of motivates us to keep working hard every day so we can get to the same spot and hopefully do even better,” Whalen said.
Lampkin said the experience of getting to state last year is a big reason for this season’s success.
“Being that close, it leaves a taste in people’s mouths,” he said. “Once you taste it, you want it again.”
Every season, every team is different, though. The Titans are not guaranteeing victory on the final day of the season.
“I would say we’re very good,” Lampkin said. “We have a very good defense, a very good offense. If our pitchers pitch the way they’re capable of, we have very good pitching. But we don’t have the depth we had last year.”
The Titans do have a lot of experience.
Whalen, Frasier, and Colton Krueger have all been on varsity for four seasons. Coulter, a junior, is in his third year on varsity.
“Most of us have been playing together since we were 10 years old,” Whalen said. “That’s a lot of years together, getting to know each other.”
That chemistry helped overcome some of the setbacks early in the year.
“We have had a few speed bumps in the season,” Coulter said. “We learned from them and got the job done.”
Lampkin is big on reminding his players that some days, the other team will just be better. Maybe the other pitcher will be on his game. Skyview’s Kody Watts had 15 strikeouts against the Titans just last week.
“Just because you got shut down like that doesn’t mean you’re not as good of a team,” he said. “It’s just that they got the better of us that day. Teams are going to get shut down once in a while. They just have to rebound. So far, they’ve been doing a really good job of that this year.”
Come state playoff time, there is no room for bouncing back. Win and you advance; lose, and you are done.
The Titans understand it as well as anyone.
They also know how to make it a memorable season, and what needs to be done to be remembered.
