An entire pitching staff for Tahoma High’s baseball team graduated.

A group of pitchers who helped the Bears to a South Puget Sound League North crown, their fourth appearance at the 4A state tournament in five years, and a 20-3 season.

For some teams that would make this a rebuilding year.

Tahoma, however, is simply refocusing on its current strengths: defense and hitting.

Connor Cloyd, a senior captain who patrols center field, said the one upside of all the rain during the preseason was that it allowed the team to work on those key elements.

“We haven’t been able to be outside much,” Cloyd said. “We pretty much find anyone we can get to throw bullpen to see what pitching we got.”

Time inside means time working on hitting and throwing.

Cloyd said the team will need its bats to get hot and stay hot as the young pitchers adjust to throwing more.

“We just gotta put up runs,” he said. “We just take a lot of reps at practice. We just have to produce runs pretty much.”

And play tough in the field to support whoever is on the mound.

“We’ll have to play good D,” he said. “We’ll have to try and cut down on errors we because we had a lot last year.”

Senior shortstop Ryan Malone stated, “We basically just gotta be sound fundamentally, mentally, defensively to back up our pitching. Our younger guys are stepping up (on the mound) this year.”

So far, big bats and defense seems to be working for the Bears, as they have started the season 4-1 overall and 3-0 in league play through March 23. Tahoma’s only loss was to Rogers in the first game. The Bears then ripped off four straight wins and scored 43 runs total.

Cloyd is hitting at a .500 clip with a double and a triple after four games.

It helps that Tahoma is returning five starters from last year’s team, including Malone and Cloyd, as well as junior Reed Johnson who was First Team SPSL North and the league batting champ with a .604 average in 2011 as well as senior first baseman Tanner Anthony who was all First Team All-League a year ago.

Malone said despite their youth Tahoma’s pitchers have come through and the hitters are getting the job done as well.

“So far, pitching has been solid,” he said. “Our entire lineup up and down can hit. We just need to throw strikes and let our defense play.”

And as of March 23, Tahoma is in first place in the SPSL North, though it’s still early. There are plenty of tough games ahead.

“It’s a great start to be 3-0 because you need the confidence going up against the tough teams next week,” Cloyd said.

Still, Cloyd thinks Tahoma can be a strong team again this season, even if it’s a different looking group than a year ago.

“A reasonable goal is to be a playoff team, a playoff contender, win league,” he said. “We want to repeat that. We want to make it back to state.”

And, of course, every team wants to take home the big prize. Tahoma, Cloyd said, is no different and always has its eye on a state championship.

To do that, he explained, the Bears need to “just compete, put up runs.”

“We can’t play to our opponents’ level,” Cloyd said. “We can do it with our bats. Our defense is good enough we can make it pretty far.”

If Tahoma can stay calm and collected this season, Malone said, those goals for the playoffs are realistic.

“We just need to stay loose and not press and just let it happen,” he said. “We just need to keep playing our game.”

Cloyd and Malone noted that Tahoma may be overlooked this season because it graduated its entire pitching staff. This could work in the Bears’ favor.

“I think we’re thought of as a sleeper team,” Malone said. “People think all of our pitching has graduated but we’ve got some underclassmen who have stepped up.”