Strong-armed Strawn is The Olympian’s All-Area baseball player of the year

Kaleb Strawn’s role on the Tenino High School baseball team has changed dramatically over the years.

“My freshman year, my role on varsity was pretty much just carry (ball) buckets around,” Strawn said. “I got in a few games to pitch. … When you’re a freshman, you’ve got to do all the work, carry all the equipment.”

And his game? It needed some lifting, too. He said he rarely played as a Little Leaguer.

“I was not very good,” Strawn said. “I just played a couple innings a game in right field — the minimum.”

Strawn has come a long ways. This season, he was Tenino’s ace, and led the Beavers to a Class 1A Southwest District title — including a win in the championship game over defending state-champion Hoquiam.

The lefty consistently fanned batters — 122 of them in 10 starts — with late velocity and a curveball that broke so much it seemingly disappeared to hitters. Strawn, who had a 1.75 ERA, is The Olympian’s All-Area baseball player of the year.

“I’ve never coached a kid or played with anybody that struck out that many kids,” Tenino coach Conner Hogue said. “Seeing him do that consistently, every week, double-digit strikeouts? I think the lowest he had was like eight in a game — and even then, that’s awesome.”

Strawn averaged two strikeouts per inning this season, and had a season-high 16 strikeouts in a game twice. He likes to sink batters into an 0-2 count, then hit them with an off-speed pitch.

“I’ll always try to start off with a first-pitch strike — with either a fastball or sometimes a curveball — and then just attack them, be really aggressive,” Strawn said.

Commanding and confident on the mound, the bullish senior caused plenty of problems for opposing hitters.

“Physically everything’s there,” Montesano coach Mike Bruner said. “Mentally, I can only speak as an opposing coach, but I think it’s pretty obvious he likes to compete.

“Players will go out there and play, and play to win, but there’s a difference between going out there and playing to win and actually competing.”

Strawn is the latter, Bruner said.

“I think one of the most impressive things about him is he has a lot of upside and a lot of room to improve,” Bruner said.

Strawn has committed to play for Columbia Basin College in Pasco. He will join former Tenino players Zack and Zeb Chamberlain next season.

Bruner — whose son Lane, a Montesano product, is a third-year pitcher at Washington State — said Strawn has next-level talent, despite pitching at a smaller high school.

“Talent is talent, and if they see it they’re going to recognize it,” Bruner said.

“(Bruner) would stop and talk to me. Aberdeen coach Shon Schreiber would stop and talk to me,” Hogue said. “I believed it, and just hearing it from these other coaches who I respect helped cement the fact that we were kind of right with our idea of how far he could go. I think he has a ton of potential.”

Strawn, who was the 1A Evergreen Conference MVP, hit .382 with 34 hits and 20 RBIs. He scored 24 runs.

“In the true sense of MVP — the most valuable player to a team — if we don’t have Kaleb, we don’t do much this year at all,” Hogue said. “He dominated throughout the entire year. It was amazing.”

This story was originally published May 26, 2016 at 7:29 PM with the headline "Strong-armed Strawn is The Olympian’s All-Area baseball player of the year."