Taylor Jones felt just fine against Puyallup May 26 in the 4A baseball state championship game at Gesa Stadium in Pasco.

Before the title game, there were two options Jones explained on Monday – either he started or Mark Dewall would get the call. It just depended on how Jones felt.

“We prepared for either one of us to start, me being the first option, him being the second,” Jones said. “I started warming up in the bullpen. I felt alright. Initially I was only supposed to go three innings of four innings … but, I felt good, good enough to keep going, so, I just finished strong.”

Jones drove in two runs and struck out eight while walking just two batters in a complete game victory for Kentwood to lead the Conquerors to their second state crown in three years despite a pulled groin suffered in a state tournament game a week earlier against Redmond.

On May 21, just two days after initially pulling the muscle, Jones said the injury wasn’t bothering him at all but at that point he was day-to-day.

And while Jones may have moved a little slow during the week leading up to the final four in Pasco, he found his groove against Puyallup.

“It was great,” Jones said. “It was one of those dream moments. You’re waiting for a stage like this. I think when it comes to me, when I’m on big stages, when I’m playing in big games, I tend to almost relax more and kind of have that adrenaline going, but, at the same time … it feels smoother and less like I have to force effort.”

After Kentwood put together an 8-5 victory over Todd Beamer in the semifinal in a game where Skyler Genger struggled on the mound, Jones got the call to throw by first-year head coach Mark Zender.

Jones, a Gonzaga University-bound senior, gave up four hits and one run to Puyallup in the title game.

Genger, who played first base in the state championship, said the other guys on the team checked up on Jones during the week.

“If you asked (Jones), you could tell he was confident,” Genger said. “We were all very confident in Taylor.”

That confidence proved to be well-founded as Jones went 2-for-4 at the plate as well as his stellar performance on the mound.

“He had a day, he had a day,” Genger said. “You could see it in his eyes, he was ready to go. Just knowing Taylor and playing with Taylor since we were little kids, there was no way he was saying he wasn’t ready to go in the state championship this year.”

Before heading to Pasco, Jones told the Reporter on May 21 that in order to win a state crown the Conquerors needed to just keep doing what they’d been doing all season, which led them to a perfect league record and the second seed out of the district tournament.

“Through the year, we’ve found so much success doing what we did,” Jones said. “Other teams in big situations try to press more and do more than what they’re capable of. We keep doing what we’ve done and maybe the other team will try to change things and maybe they’ll falter. We tried to keep our mind set on doing what we’ve done and it showed.”

Plus there was the added motivation of beating Puyallup, which handed Kentwood its first loss of the season in the league playoff game in early May.

“They won one, we won one,” Jones said. “I think it kind of helped us, it gave us  more motivation to go out there and get it done.”

Genger said he was also proud of some of the younger players on the team like sophomore Kade Kryzsko, who plays short stop, that stepped up and played with a remarkable level of poise as well as maturity in the post-season.

“Kade Kryzsko came out and had one of the best games I’ve ever seen, going 3-for-3 in the state championship, which is pretty incredible for a sophomore,” Genger said. “He’s grown so much as a player and I expect big things coming from him.”

Still, Genger said, it was important for the seniors to help the team stay relaxed during the game since the Conks took the lead early they had to make sure they didn’t let up.

After every inning they met in front of the dugout, Genger said, and told them to keep calm as well as maintain the same attitude that got them to the game and got them ahead because Puyallup is a good team who could fight to get back into it.

“As the last few outs came along, you could see Puyallup tense up,” Genger said. “In the last inning everyone was ready and excited because we knew we had done it. It was pretty awesome.”

Genger knows what it’s like to win a state title because he came off the bench his sophomore year for the boys basketball team which won it all. In that game he was on the floor at the end at the bottom of the dog pile as the group celebrated.

This time, though, it was different.

“Right when we got on the bust and we turned on all our phones, our Facebooks and Twitters were just exploding,” he said. “I don’t want to say at Kentwood we expect to win, we just have a bunch of people, that’s the only thing we want to do. Coach Zender said of the start of the year our goal was to win a state championship.”

Kentwood’s tradition of winning state titles was a motivator, especially since Genger is not the only one in the family with that experience, as his older sister Jessie was on the 2009 girls basketball team that won it all.

“It started with my sister in ‘09 when she won a ring,” he said. “It made me want to win one that’s bigger. It’s pretty cool now that I’ve finally accomplished what I’ve been wanted to do since I was a little guy running around the school with Cash (McGuire).”

It’s a moment that he shares not just with fellow senior Cash McGuire, but, with the entire team which has a level of chemistry which Genger said was unreal.

“What I texted my coach … was that I’ve never been more sad and happy at the same time after a season because this team, it’s ridiculous, there’s no better team that I’ve played on … that’s had a team bond like this one,” Genger said.

For Jones, winning state meant everything, the ultimate way to finish his senior season as a student-athlete.

“Your last year of high school you always want to go out on top,” Jones said. “We have such a good group, a lot of talent, a lot of great players. We jelled. We played very relaxed. With that, it kind of made it more special.”