The Homer baseball team defeated Kenai Central 10-1 on Tuesday in Southcentral Conference action at the Soldotna Little League fields.
The Mariners are 1-1 in the league and 2-3 overall, while the Kardinals drop to 0-3 in the league and overall.
Homer once again got solid pitching and defense, but, crucially, the Mariners were able to mix in some offense this time.
“I’ve been really happy with our pitching and defense,” Homer coach Rich Sonnen said. “We don’t have a lights-out ace, but I have six solid guys I can throw out on the mound, and a defense that has been backing them up.”
Mose Hayes and Douglas Dean got the job done on the hill Tuesday. Hayes pitched five innings and gave up a hit and an unearned run while walking three and striking out 11. Dean finished up with two scoreless innings, giving up a hit while striking out two.
On offense, Joe Ravin was 3 for 4 while Landon Bunting was 2 for 2 and Kyle Wells, Harrison Metz and Seth Adkins added hits.
“We were able to score the guys that we did get on base instead of leaving the bases loaded,” Sonnen said. “That’s what we’d been doing.”
Kenai coach Luke Oliver said his scorebook had the Kardinals getting only one hit in the game — coming from Knox Amend. Nick Wehrstein scored the run on a passed ball.
Harold Ochea got the start for Kenai and went five innings, giving up seven runs.
“He did a really good job, especially considering it was his second time pitching and his first start on the season,” Oliver said.
The coach said the Kards battled through a lot of plays that didn’t show up as errors in the scorebook, but were definitely outs that should have been made.
Manny Noriega finished up with two innings for Kenai, yielding three runs.
“He did fine, too,” Oliver said of Noriega. “Both of them were very much improved from their first outing. Hopefully, that’s a trend that continues with our other pitchers.”
