Not all nonleague baseball games are created equal. And Friday evening’s clash between Summit and West Albany was more than just an ordinary tune-up game in the early stages of the season with league play quickly approaching.

For the Storm, the 5-4 win over the Bulldogs meant something, as evidenced by Summit’s celebration after the final out. It was as much about avenging a postseason loss as it was about building inertia for the remainder of the season.

“That was the most fun we had playing baseball,” said Summit senior outfielder Slater de Brun. “Our motivation came out in the right way.”

Summit senior right-hander Carter Hess struck out seven West Albany batters and allowed two earned runs over five innings of work on the mound. Senior catcher Tanner McIntyre drove in three runs, including a two-run triple in the third inning.

“We’ve had this game circled ever since we saw it on the calendar early in the season,” said Summit coach Aaron Boehm. “Today things just clicked. We had more hits today with our first four batters than we did in all of our last game. Our approach was different today. It was a team win and these kids were motivated to beat a team that knocked us out of the playoffs last year.

“We needed to redeem ourselves from that moment,” Boehm continued. “These 14 young men are dirt dogs. They wanted to beat that team. Today was an important win for us.”

Last spring, Summit (4-3 overall this season) harnessed a bit of postseason magic, advancing all the way to the Class 5A semifinals as the tournament’s No. 8 seed, pulling off an upset over No. 1 Canby in the quarterfinals.

The Storm were on the verge of making a trip to the state championship game and a bang-bang play at the plate away from playing for the Class 5A state title. The team that ended that dream with a 7-6 win? West Albany.

The Summit players did not forget. And if some of them had forgotten, a text to the team’s group chat from Finn Edwards — now pitching at Iowa Western and the tying run that was thrown out at the plate — made sure to let them know that even he hadn’t forgotten what happened last May.

“It will feel good to text him that we won and that we got our revenge,” McIntyre said.

Storm baseball avenges last year’s semifinal loss with win over West Albany“I was fired up coming into this one because they had knocked us out of the playoffs,” said senior infielder Nolan Boehm, who picked up two hits and scored a run. “I came into today knowing we were going to be playing them. I was so mad, I wanted to swing at every pitch and do everything we could to show them it is not going to happen again.”

The Bulldogs (1-6 overall) pulled within a run in the seventh inning and had the tying run at third, but the Storm got the final out to win their fourth straight game.

Summit returns a talented team with eight seniors, highlighted by de Brun, who is signed to play baseball at Vanderbilt University and could hear his name called in the upcoming MLB draft. Pitcher Alex Via is signed with the University of Portland.

Last year the Storm’s run to the semifinals came as a bit of a surprise, especially after starting the season with just four wins in their first 11 games. The hope is a game like Friday’s can be a jumping off point to contending for an Intermountain Conference title and a state title.

After a pair of non-league games against Crescent Valley on Tuesday and on the road against Oregon City on Friday, the Storm will open IMC play with a marquee matchup on April 15 against Ridgeview — last year’s conference champions, who also reached the 5A semifinals.

“Last year we started off with a couple of wins then we went through a bad slump,” McIntyre said. “We need a turning point in our season and that needs to be now and not midway through league if we want to win league. We want to keep winning to set ourselves up for the playoffs.”