LYNNWOOD — In Glacier Peak baseball’s matchup at Meadowdale High School on Wednesday, Lucas Keller’s second and third at-bats had a lot in common with each other: Both were hits to left field. Both ended with the junior outfielder standing at second base.

Both happened in the third inning.

With Glacier Peak holding a 2-1 lead, Keller opened the frame with a double. The next time he stepped up to the plate, the visitors had built the lead up to 7-1 after taking a full turn through the order. And they weren’t done.

Hitting with runners on the corners and two outs, Keller wanted to at least score his teammate on third. Blasting a pitch high towards the outfield fence, he appeared poised to do more than that. The Glacier Peak cheering section felt the ball had a good chance to leave the park as it soared to the outfield, but it hit the ground right at the fence. Keller would have to settle for an RBI double, ending with runners on second and third.

“Honestly, just trying to hit it in the gap, just hit something hard,” Keller said. “Needed something that needed to go far, so it was good to feel that. … I didn’t know if it was going to be gone, but I knew it was going to be close, so just trying to get around the bases.”

Meadowdale made a pitching change and got out of the inning against the next batter, but the damage was done. With Keller bookending the rally, the Grizzlies (9-3) held an 8-1 lead that they built up to 13-1 by the fifth inning, invoking the run-rule for a non-league win against the Mavericks (3-7).

Keller went 3-for-3 with two runs and an RBI, while seniors Jake Doman (2-for-3) and Kaleb Bishop (3-for-4) each drove in three runs. The trio led a team-wide 13-hit effort just two days after Glacier Peak was nearly no-hit in a 3-0 loss to Shorecrest. Senior Atticus Quist hit a single with one out in the seventh to break up Nate Singleton’s bid for the Scots.

Safe to say the Grizzlies put it behind them quickly.

“It was very nice,” Glacier Peak coach Bob Blair said. “We made adjustments. We corrected some things, and it was nice to see them execute on what we worked on. … We just worked on adjusting to different pitching, staying back and driving the ball into the alleys instead of trying to pull everything.”

However, Wednesday was more than just an offensive showcase. Senior JW Grose allowed just three hits and one unearned run in four innings of work, striking out six and walking one. Freshman Jackson Birrell closed things out with two strikeouts and one walk in a single inning of relief.

As for Meadowdale, senior Kealoha Kepo’o-Sabate went 1-for-2 and scored the lone run, stealing third and advancing home on a throwing error in the first inning.

The Mavericks have had an up-and-down season, starting 0-4 then winning three straight before extending their new losing streak to three on Wednesday. Still, they sit in the middle of the pack in Wesco South 3A/2A with a 3-3 league record, with room to grow for a lineup that contains four freshmen and two sophomores.

According to coach Darren Watkins, Meadowdale is going about things the right way, for the most part, but just needs to start turning contact into actually putting pressure on opposing defenses.

“I feel really, really good about this team,” Watkins said. “We’re barreling up a little bit, but it’s going right at people. We’re not getting any balls (that) hit the ground. It’s just not going our way yet, and I just feel like we’re one bunt, we’re one hit, we’re one execution away for us to start clicking as a team. I’m just still waiting for that, and I know it’s going to come.”

Cleaning up the defense also remains a priority, as the Grizzlies reached on multiple errors in the third inning to keep their big rally alive. Before that, they took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first when Keller singled to put sophomore Aiden Yoo on third following the infielder’s leadoff walk. Quist scored Yoo with a sacrifice fly, and Doman brought Keller home two batters later with a single up the middle.

Kepo’o-Sabate made his way around the bases following an infield single in the bottom of the frame, advancing to second on a balk before his steal attempt of third resulted in a full trip home, but that was as close as it would get before Glacier Peak broke things open.

After Grose pitched a 1-2-3 inning in the bottom of the second, Keller’s leadoff double in the third ultimately resulted in a run when Doman reached safely on an infield error. Senior Will Dacy hit an RBI single in the next at-bat, and the Grizzlies pushed it 5-1 after Bishop reached safely on another Mavericks error. Junior Brody Monica and senior Matthew Marquardt hit back-to-back RBI singles to push it to 7-1 before Keller returned to the plate for his big RBI double.

While the rally meant extra downtime for Grose in the dugout, he was unfazed in his return to the mound in the bottom of the frame. After allowing a leadoff single to freshman Thor Amundson, Grose struck out each of the next three batters.

“The first guy, I had to work back into it. I sat around for a little bit,” Grose said. “But after that, I felt really good and just had to go out there and throw strikes.

“I was just happy to watch everybody hit the ball good. It was fun to see that, especially coming from last game where we didn’t really hit. Seeing everybody hit the ball well today was really exciting.”

Bishop pushed the lead to 9-1 in the fourth with an RBI single up the middle after fouling off about half a dozen pitches, and Glacier Peak opened the fifth with three walks and a single to walk in another run before senior pitcher Cole Mueller got an opportunity to take his first plate appearance of the season, which gave the whole dugout extra juice.

Mueller barely fouled the first pitch, smoking it just past the first base line deep in left field before grounding into a fielder’s choice. Reaching first safely, Mueller ultimately made it home on another RBI single from Bishop to make it 12-1 before Monica sent the last run across by reaching first safely on an infield error.

“It’s awesome,” Grose said of Mueller’s at-bat. “It’s part of the culture. Everyone just wants to have part of the win. Everybody wants to win. He’s out there competing, and it was fun to see that.”

In a crucial “get-right” game, both for the bats and the overall vibes of the team, the Grizzlies delivered. Following another non-league game against Everett on Friday, Glacier Peak has back-to-back two-game sets against Kamiak (April 13 and 15) and Jackson (April 17 and 21), which are the two teams in front of them in Wesco 4A.

“I think we’re moving in the right direction,” Blair said. “Each game, we get a little bit better, and we can get a little bit closer with each other, and those are the important things. You just keep building and building. You don’t want to peak too early, you want to peak at the end of May, and I think these guys are on the right track for that.”