Stanwood baseball gets early jump on Mountlake Terrace

Published 10:10 pm Wednesday, April 15, 2026

STANWOOD — By the time Ryan Hansen took the mound for Stanwood baseball at Spartan Field on Wednesday, he was already in trouble.

The senior entered in relief against a Mountlake Terrace squad that loaded the bases in the sixth inning. Stanwood held a 6-2 lead, but one swing could make it a new ball game. Facing a pinch hitter and unable to rely on details from previous at-bats, all Hansen could do was focus on himself. Needing just one out to escape the inning, he was determined to get the strikeout.

At the end of a competitive at-bat, Hansen found himself pitching to a full count. With no margin for error, he stuck to his plan with confidence.

“I was thinking I can land my slider. I know I can,” Hansen said. “I’ve done it every single time. I don’t know, the times that I’ve missed it, it’s just me pulling it, and I was just thinking, ‘Throw this, and he’s not going to touch it.’”

Hansen delivered his slider. The batter watched it go by, and the umpire signaled strike three. Thrown into a claustrophobic situation, Hansen allowed Stanwood to breathe again.

From there, the Spartans (10-3) eased their way to a 6-2 win against the Hawks (4-9), their third win in a row after going through a three-game losing streak earlier this season.

After walking off Snohomish for a 3-2 win on March 25, Stanwood suffered its first loss of the season to the Panthers two days later to split the season series. The Spartans dropped each of the next two games — non-league losses to Edmonds-Woodway (3-0 on April 3) and Jackson (5-3 on April 7) — to fall to 7-3. It was the first time Stanwood lost three games in a row since late March 2024.

Since then, the Spartans have won three straight and remain 1.5 games clear of the pack atop Wesco North 3A/2A.

“We’ve got our offense right,” Stanwood coach Matt Brennan said. “We just had to come around and get some confidence in our hitting, and have a better approach, and the guys have taken that to heart. They’re doing that every day in practice, and they’re putting it to practice here at the games, and it’s really showing. We’re finally able to put some pressure on teams. We weren’t able to do that. We were in the air a lot with our balls, and we still have a little bit of that to fix, but it’s much better.”

Junior Jaxson Beard went 1-for-1 with two walks, two RBI and one run scored, and sophomore Graham Schwender went 2-for-3 with one run scored. On the mound, sophomore Braddock Johnson allowed four hits, two walks and two earned runs while striking out four across 5 2/3 innings. Hansen allowed one base-runner via a hit-by-pitch, but retired every other batter he faced in 1 1/3 innings.

It was Beard who drove in the first run for Stanwood, which batted around the order in the first inning while taking a 4-0 lead. Sophomore Grady Lamb worked a leadoff walk, then advanced to second on a wild pitch before Beard ripped an RBI single to left field.

A Cullen Maloney groundout moved Beard to third, and he reached home on a passed ball to make it 2-0. The next three batters reached, with sophomore Dean Fagan benefitting from a throwing error to load the bases, and junior Brayden Wammack sent a two-run single up the middle to make it 4-0.

“I think just attacking the ball early in the count,” Beard said, labeling the key to the early rally. “(The Mountlake Terrace starter) left a lot of pitches over the middle of the plate, and our offense just took advantage of it.”

Johnson pitched two perfect innings before the Hawks got things going in the third. Junior Owen Boswell led off with an infield single, and a hit-by-pitch and walk for the next two batters set up Mountlake Terrace with bases loaded and no outs. Senior Owen Meek was hit by a pitch to put the Hawks on the board, which prompted a mound visit involving Brennan, Johnson and the Stanwood infield.

After regrouping, Johnson induced a double play for two quick outs. The Hawks still cut it to 4-2 with the RBI groundout, but Johnson notched a strikeout to get out of the inning.

“I just had to slow my tempo down,” Johnson said. “I was kind of going a little fast. Bases loaded, no outs, I was trying to get some outs, so figured (I’d) pitch to contact, right? Get a couple ground balls, and then we got that double play. That was huge.”

Still, it was a much-needed response for a Mountlake Terrace team that has found itself in close matchups for the majority of its losing stretch. Despite dropping six of its past seven games, the Hawks were within four runs in five of them.

Coach Ryan Sells believes that once his team can eliminate errors in the field, it will be in a much better position to close out games.

“I think we fell short those last couple games with situation hitting, errors in the field, which we still had this game, but we minimized those,” Sells said. “I think (this loss to Stanwood) came down to them taking advantage of those situations as well. … Just those little things. So I’m not upset whatsoever. I think, you take away the first inning, it’s a 2-2 ball game.”

Senior Charlie Schofield was 2-for-3 at the plate for the Hawks, and Boswell went 1-for-2 with a walk and one run scored. Sophomore Max Faast took over on the mound after the first inning and allowed five hits, four walks and one earned run while striking out two over the remaining five innings.

Faast retired the side in the bottom of the third, but Stanwood picked up a couple of insurance runs in the fourth. The Spartans loaded the bases again with a walk and a pair of singles, and Beard hit a sacrifice fly to center to extend the lead to 5-2 before Lamb scored from third on a passed ball during the next at-bat.

“That was huge,” Brennan said of the insurance runs. “Because they put pressure on us all throughout the game, and we knew that four runs wasn’t going to cut it for us, so we needed that. We needed to give our pitchers some room to breathe, and pitch with confidence knowing that, ‘Okay, I’ve got the cushion.’”

Mountlake Terrace prevented another Spartans run in the fifth. Catcher Kala Celms managed to put out senior Tanner Requa attempting to steal third right before Fagan hit a double that otherwise would have scored him. The Hawks managed to load the bases in the sixth, bringing the tying run to the plate before Hansen entered for Stanwood to shut it down in relief.

While Mountlake Terrace will look to regroup in three consecutive non-league games, Stanwood will aim to boost its position in Wesco North with its next three games coming against league opponents.

“We went three games losing, right? That’s tough,” Johnson said. “But I’m glad we battled back. I’m glad we can get our train (on the) tracks again. Our pitching has been phenomenal. Our bats are starting to get going, which is really awesome.”