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By WILL MORROW
Peninsula Clarion

The American Legion Twins polished off their regular season with a split of a two-game series against a team of Twins alumni Friday and Saturday at Coral Seymour Memorial Park in Kenai.

Up next for the Twins is the American Legion state tournament starting Tuesday at Mulcahy Park in Anchorage.

"We used this (the alumni games) pitching-wise to set ourselves up for Tuesday," said Twins head coach John Kennedy, who was able to get all of his throwers a couple of innings of work in the two games.

"We found out we play West (to open the tournament), and that's a team we've had very good success against. We'll go up and take it one game at a time."

The team of old-timers was able to prevail 4-3 in Friday's game behind the pitching of Mike Smith, who went on from the Twins to pitch at the college level before returning to the Twins last season as the assistant coach.

In Saturday's game, Kennedy, also a Twins alumnus, took the mound for Saturday's game, much to the delight of his current players. The old-timers' defense was shaky early, though, and the Twins plated several runs to jump out to a first-inning lead.

David Newby, bound for the University of Texas-Arlington this fall, got the old-timers back into the game with his two-run homer to left-center field in the fourth inning and a two-run single to left in the sixth. Kyle Foster also hit an RBI single in the sixth.

The game also had a few company picnic softball game-type moments, with a few versions of the hidden ball trick, a scary collision between two Twins, both playing out of their normal positions, chasing down a pop fly, a play at second in which Steve Mabeus was very fortunate to be wearing his athletic cup, and an inning of the Twins batting from the opposite side of the plate. Twins' Jacob Madrid topped it all off with a nice diving catch in left field to end the game.

Kyle Johnson, playing for the old-timers, said he had a blast.

"I haven't played in years, but to come and catch for Mike (Smith), it was like old times. I feel like someone stuck a dinner plate in my mouth, I've been smiling so much," Johnson said. "I came here for the fun of it. I took a day off from work to do it — it's not like basketball. You can't just pick up a game wherever you go."

Other alumni taking the field included J.D. Pault, Tom Carver and Willy Castillo.

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