Not even a 1-0 loss in the first round of the Class 2A state baseball tournament could dampen the spirits of Sammamish Totems baseball head coach Cory Smith.

East Valley may have registered a 1-0 win on May 23 in Yakima to end the Totems 2015 season, but it was a memorable ride nonetheless. The Totems lost 19 of their first 20 games but won four games during the district playoffs, earning a trip to the big dance in Yakima. Smith said his squad was consistently better than its overall record.

“I don’t look at it as we started off the season slow. It certainly looks that way if you look at the wins and losses but in our first six games of the year we had an opportunity to win in the last inning every time. We played in a league (3A/2A KingCo Conference) that is very challenging,” Smith said. “The margin for error is slim. We didn’t come up on the right side of the win column all the time but we focused as a team on finding the positives and finding ways to improve every single day as a team.”

The Totems went 4-1 at districts defeating Sequim, North Mason, River Ridge and Franklin Pierce to earn a state berth.

“When we got into our district tournament we had confidence and started to have some success. We went on a nice run. It was a really fun journey. Teams knew who we were,” Smith said.

Smith said it was tough to say goodbye to seniors Nick DeGallier, Eniah McClinton and Ben Friedman for the final time following the loss to East Valley.

“Those guys gave it everything they had and were outstanding leaders on the practice field and in games. You couldn’t ask for a better group of seniors to coach. I wish we could had sent them out with a win at the state tournament,” he said.

The Totems baseball program will return 10 of its 13 players on this year’s roster in the spring of 2016.

“The cupboard certainly is not bare,” Smith said. “We have a lot of underclassman coming back and have a good core of juniors who got a lot of good experience this season. I think early on it took awhile for our team to adjust to the speed of the game at the varsity level. You can’t always simulate the level of play during practice and gaining that kind of experience in games like we did improves your baseball IQ. I think what happened this year is going to benefit our team next season. We’ll be back and ready to compete.”

Shaun Scott: 425-453-5045; sscott@bellevuereporter.com