Kamiak baseball ekes past Lake Stevens

Published 1:30 am Friday, March 27, 2026

LAKE STEVENS — Lake Stevens baseball sat in the driver’s seat.

Holding a 2-1 lead against Kamiak at home on Thursday, Lake Stevens put its first two batters of the fourth inning on base when Grant McAllister reached first on a bunt after Kellen Gadin blooped a single into shallow right field. Gadin advanced to third on a throwing error to put runners on the corners with no outs.

Getting out of the inning unscathed would be a tall order for Kamiak ace Cole Armstrong-Hoss, but not many things are too tall for the 6-foot-7 senior. After striking out the next Lake Stevens batter, Armstrong-Hoss induced an inning-ending double play to keep the deficit at one.

“Cole’s a captain for a reason,” Kamiak coach Bryce Cote said. “He really wants this. He shows that a lot. He wants every opportunity that he can (get), and we’re more than happy to give it to him. He’s, again, a senior leader, senior captain. We trust him completely with the ball in his hand if he wants it.”

Amped up by the big defensive play, Kamiak responded by putting its first two batters of the fifth inning on base via a Luke Dutchin single and a Reid Edwards walk. After a series of wild pitches and passed balls, both ultimately made it home, with Edwards sliding in as the go-ahead run before Jaxen Edwards extended it to 4-2 with an RBI groundout.

Lake Stevens would score once more and put the tying run on third in the seventh inning, but relievers Blake Fischer and Owen Greer shut the door for the Knights (4-1, 2-0 league) in a 4-3 win against the Vikings (1-2, 0-1 league).

“I think that was huge,” Reid Edwards said about turning the double play before the comeback. “We came into the game, and we knew that we could play good defense, and that we can trust our pitchers to throw strikes because they can trust us to play defense behind them. And we just build off the momentum and keep stacking runs.”

Armstrong-Hoss allowed two hits, two runs and five walks across four innings, and Fischer notched one strikeout across two perfect innings in relief. At the plate, Reid Edwards went 1-for-2 with a walk and two runs scored, and Caleb Morgan finished 2-for-3.

After starting the season with a narrow 6-5 loss to Snohomish on March 11, Kamiak has rattled off four straight wins, including two in Wesco 4A.

Even after the loss to Snohomish, Cote touted the team’s depth, which played a significant role in Thursday’s win. All four of the team’s hits came from the bottom half of the order, including two from the 8-9 slots. The bullpen behind Armstrong-Hoss also held up nicely, displaying a well-rounded — and unselfish — group.

“I think a lot of our guys in our lineup don’t really care where they are in the lineup,” Cote said. “They just care that they’re there, and I think that’s the mentality that a lot of them carry. They treat every opportunity like it’s a bar of gold and they take it around with (them) as much as they can.

“It’s not just the 1-4 or 1-5 (of the batting order) that have relentless effort. It’s our 1-16.”

For Lake Stevens, Blake Moser went 1-for-4 with two stolen bases and a run scored, and Gadin went 1-for-2 with a walk. Chad Greaby tossed three hitless innings with five strikeouts in relief.

Just three games into their season, the Vikings sandwiched a 3-2 win against Shorewood on Tuesday with two losses. Coach David Benson expressed confidence in the lineup’s potential, but he has yet to see a complete effort from a group looking to replace the production of last year’s All-Area Hitter of the Year Aspen Alexander, who now plays for Grand Canyon University.

“We kind of had a couple of innings throughout the middle of the game where we just didn’t really— we couldn’t provide any pressure, and it kind of took us out of our game,” Benson said. “Obviously, this offense is capable of putting up numbers at any point, so it’s good to see them not kind of give up on the half and be able to try to compete at the end. It’s just kind of a missed opportunity to kind of apply that pressure throughout all seven innings.”

Due to what Cote described as “a bus scheduling mix-up” at Kamiak, the Knights did not arrive to the field until 4:30 p.m., the exact scheduled time for first pitch and an hour after the team intended to show up. The umpires allotted the Knights 30 minutes to warm up and pushed the game back to 5 p.m.

As such, it was Lake Stevens that started on time, taking a 1-0 lead in the second after Kamiak walked the bases loaded. Chase Fluke scored from third on a wild pitch, and the Vikings loaded the bases again with a fourth straight walk, but Armstrong-Hoss got out of the jam by retiring the next two batters.

The Knights tied it up in the top of the third as Reid Edwards led off with a bloop single to right field before scoring from third on a sacrifice fly from Colby Koga, jogging in after the Lake Stevens outfielder slipped before he could attempt a throw home.

“We had good, disciplined at-bats,” Reid Edwards said. “We all trust one another to do their job at the plate, and trust them to get me in to score.”

Moser retook the lead almost single-handedly for the Vikings in the bottom of the frame, legging out an infield single before stealing two bases across the following two at-bats. In fact, the easiest base for him to reach was home plate, where he jogged in to make it 2-1 after a Kamiak wild pitch.

After the Knights surged back to take the 4-2 lead, Fischer needed just four pitches to retire the heart of the order in the fifth inning. He was similarly efficient in the sixth, going 1-2-3 once again and ending his day with a strikeout on a full count.

“Just attack them,” Fischer said. “Make them hit the ball. I have to trust our defense.”

Greaby silenced the Kamiak bats across the final three innings to keep Lake Stevens in reach, and the Vikings threatened to even the game in the bottom of the seventh when Greer took the mound. McAllister led off with a walk, and a Cayden DeElena single put runners on the corners after Greer notched a strikeout in between.

Josh Bouley brought in McAllister with an RBI groundout, and DeElena reached third base representing the tying run. With one out to go, Greer attacked the zone to gain an 0-2 lead in the count. It evened to 2-2, but Greer secured the save with a punchout.

“My strategy was just to keep him off balance,” Greer said. “Mostly with off-speed, and not give him anything hard over the middle of the plate to hit.”

Lake Stevens will have a chance at revenge on Kamiak’s turf on Monday after each side plays a non-league opponent on Saturday. The Knights understand they will have to bring the same energy, if not more, in order to secure the season sweep.

“They’re still a good team,” Greer said. “We just got to play our brand of ball and not really worry about them.”