By John Leggett | The Courier-Herald

Sumner High girls basketball coach Robert Thayer wasn’t involved in setting this season’s schedule, but he likes the way things have turned out. His Spartans were 2-0 in South Puget Sound League 3A play and 4-2 overall, through Saturday.

“We could have assigned ourselves lousy squads to beat up in the preseason, but that really wouldn’t have accomplished much,” Thayer said. “Instead our confidence is building daily even though we lost to what was one of the best 1A teams in the state last year in Seattle Christian and a 3A team in Yelm that went to the state tournament last year.”

The Spartans fell 47-42 to Yelm Saturday and lost 70-59 to Seattle Christian Dec. 5

But what Thayer sees as being the most important was Friday’s 59-47 victory over Peninsula.

“Peninsula is a good team and beat us handily in both meetings we had last year. So, beating them on the road at this early stage of the season was huge for us,” Thayer said.

The Spartans bolted to a 28-15 advantage by intermission, then had to keep Peninsula at bay as the Seahawks recorded 32 points in the second half.

Led by the hot shooting of Kendall Theden, 14 points, Tyeanne Lubking, 10, Angie Wagar-Sanchez, 11, and Ericka Olsen, 11, Sumner outdueled a resurgent Peninsula group 24-21 in the fourth period to claim its second league win.

Sumner hosted Clover Park Tuesday, with results coming too late to include here; the score will be posted at www.courierherald.com.

At 7 p.m. Thursday, Sumner travels to Auburn Mountainview where it will encounter a Lion squad which came into the week with a 2-1 record in league and a 3-3 mark overall.