One of the spring’s most incredible stories came to a close Tuesday night.

In one of the most unlikely postseason runs in recent KingCo history, the Sammamish baseball team finally came back down to earth with a 6-1 loss to O’Dea in a winner-to-state game in White Center.

The loss, however, didn’t overshadow what Sammamish had accomplished in the last week.

The Totems entered the KingCo tournament as the lowest seed with an overall record of just 3-16.

“It was as simple as we had nothing to lose,” said second-year Sammamish coach Tim Ahern. “Nobody expected anything from us. A lot of other teams press and they get uncomfortable – for our guys it was easy, we were supposed to lose the first game.”

Instead, the Totems came out and shocked Liberty, which had finished the regular season as the league’s No. 3 team and a squad some had penciled in as a title contender.

Sammamish scored all of their runs in the first inning and rode the hot pitching of senior Rick Teegarden, who hadn’t pitched regularly because of shoulder problems. The Totems ended the Patriots’ season with a 4-1 win.

“In my two years, we had never beaten Liberty,” Ahern said. “That gave them the mindset that they could do it.”

Though Sammamish suffered a 10-0 setback to Mercer Island in the semifinals, Ahern told the team to “flush the loss down” because the Totems could still win two games Saturday to advance to the state play-in game.

They did just that.

Teegarden pitched a gem in the first game against Mount Si, a complete game three-hit effort that stymied the Wildcats, who had tied for the conference title in the regular season. Centerfielder Brett Berkey knocked in the winning run in the sixth inning as well as made two diving catches that “saved our season” in Ahern’s words.

“If he doesn’t make those plays,” Ahern said, “our season is over.”

Less than an hour after the win over Mount Si, the Totems proceeded to shatter Bellevue’s hopes, defeating the Wolverines 15-6, coming back from a 4-0 deficit to a team that lost in the KingCo title game just two days prior.

Berkey and junior Chris Strain each delivered five RBI to help Sammamish complete its run through the league tournament – and deliver the Totems to a shot at a state berth.

In a span of five days, the Totems had beaten three teams they hadn’t seen a victory over in Ahern’s tenure.

“You got the feeling the kids just weren’t going to lose Saturday,” Ahern said.

Tuesday, however, the Totems ran into an opponent who was simply hotter than they were in the defending state champion Irish. O’Dea had scored 54 runs in their previous three games.

But Sammamish scored the game’s first run after Eric Wollebek led off the game with a triple and scored on a sacrifice fly. Unfortunatly for the Totems, that was all they would get off of standout junior pitcher Keenan Forch. Forch struck out eight Totems and scattered seven hits in a complete-game 6-1 win.

“We made a couple big mistakes that cost us,” Ahern said. “We just ran into a hot pitcher.”

With that, the Totems magical run was over. Sammamish ended the season at 6-18, but the team, and Ahern, received a standing ovation from the crowd at the end of the game.

“I was an emotional wreck,” Ahern said. “I just told them how proud I was of them. The fact that they made that push that we were able to make at the end, it was very special.”g

Ahern said he hadn’t experienced anything like the run the Totems made in his playing days, which included his prep days at Eastlake High School and college days at Bellevue College and Texas Tech.

“Not even close,” he said. “You go 3-17, 99 percent of those teams go 3-18. Somehow it clicks three games out of four and you’re beating the best teams in the league. I’ll be honest I can’t explain it.”

He also added that the run will help the Totems baseball program as a whole in years to come.

“The key is that now we’ve done it, we’ve beaten every team in this league,” Ahern said. “That’s huge. Now who’s to say we can’t do it again?”