For the Auburn Mountainview baseball team it’s a season that has been three years in the making.

After three seasons of work with the same core group of kids, the Lions appear to be ready to make their mark in the postseason.

The team has made its case several times this season already, beating second-place Enumclaw twice and posting an 11-3 South Puget Sound League 3A Division first-place record.

“We definitely have the right pieces in place this year, and if we continue working, especially on offense which has been our struggle this year, we are ready for the postseason,” Walker said.

“Ultimately though, it’s three years of experience and just plugging and plugging away. And the maturity level,” Walker said.

Senior pitcher Cody Hebner agreed that the team has found the perfect mix of maturity, talent and chemistry.

“Our team has always been young, and now we have a lot of chemistry,” he said. “A lot of guys have been working hard together. And we just came together both on and off the field this year. We’re real close as a team.”

Ultimately, however, it’s the emergence of the team’s pitching staff that has made the biggest difference this year.

In addition to Hebner, who throws consistently in the high-80s, the team boasts two other strong arms in Brandon Williams and Steven Johnson.

“We added a sophomore pitcher, Steven Johnson, this year, which gives us three guys who can pitch in the high-80s,” he said.

And when it comes to judging a good pitcher, Walker’s credentials are as good as it gets at the high school level. In 2003 Walker coached Issaquah’s Liberty High School to a Washington State 3A championship, with future San Francisco Giant Tim Linceum on the mound.

“This staff is as good as I’ve ever had, even in 2003 with Linceum,” Walker said.

“Cody has really come into his own this year. Last year he was topping out at 82 or 83. Now he’s in the high 80s consistently and has touched on 90 a few times. I think most impressive is his five walks though, in all the innings he’s pitched this year.”

“My arm just developed,” Hebner said. “I don’t know how it happened.”

For Williams, a junior, it’s the combination of pitchers and a rock solid defense that has pushed the team to the top of the league standings.

“I really think it’s our pitchers. Cody is throwing almost 90,” he said. “And defensively we’re doing really well. It’s not every game you can strike out everyone. If you get a ground ball, you can rely on the team behind you to take care of it. We’ve got everybody in the perfect place now. The first three years we were just trying to find out who fit where.”

This past Friday the team had its biggest test of the season with a contest against Enumclaw for rights to first-place in the SPSL 3A.

In front of a full house at Auburn Mountainview the Lions, with Hebner on the mound, beat Enumclaw 3-2 in an emotionally charged game.

“The win itself was – from a standing point of view – huge,” he said. “We have the tiebreaker now so it’s all in our hands. As far as the energy and learning that we could play to the next level, that was huge also. We didn’t play above our heads or anything, but we played to our level.

“I’ve played in some big games, won state, took fifth in state and that ranks in the top-three,” he said.

“That was our biggest game in Mountainview history,” Hebner added.

But for every high, there is usually a low. The day after beating the Hornets, the Lions fell prey to Bonney Lake and pitcher Kurtis Grams, who pitched a 5-0 no-hitter at Cheney Stadium.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had that kind of experience winning that kind of game (against Enumclaw),” Hebner said. “We needed a little more time to process it. We were prepared physically and not mentally.”

“It was almost like an emotional hangover,” Williams added. “We came in Saturday thinking the team wasn’t that good and that we would win.”

Walker said the key is in using the loss to learn from, rather than letting it drag the team down.

“We have to take our wins no matter how big or how small and look on to the next game,” Walker said. “Because if we get to where we want to go, which is deep into the postseason, you might have to double dip, or play an early game after a night game. You can’t look back then.”

“It’s become a motivation,” Williams said of the loss. “We have to win these last few games to clinch the title. If we had won then we would have won the title.

According to Hebner, however, the team is prepared for the postseason.

“We’re ready,” he said. “If we can play every game like we did against Enumclaw, we should do very well. We’re a good team, we just need to play hard every pitch and not let down, but overall I think we’re ready for it.”