The American Legion Post 20 Twins returned just three starters this season, plus another who was in and out of the starting lineup last year, so head coach Robb Quelland didn’t know quite what to expect from the club.
The Twins responded by going 22-5-2 overall and 12-2 in the league to earn the No. 2 overall seed heading into the 73rd Alaska Legion Baseball State Tournament at Mulcahy Stadium in Anchorage.
Post 20 carries a 14-game winning streak into a 4 p.m. Friday game against Ketchikan, which is 6-8 and 8-13.
The eight-team tournament has two pools — Denali and Alyeska.
The Twins are in the Alyeska Pool and must finish in the top two of the pool after playing Wasilla, West and Ketchikan to advance to Tuesday’s semifinals.
Post 20 plays Wasilla at 4 p.m. Sunday and West at 4 p.m. Monday.
“Every year you get a new group of players, and you never know what you’re gonna have,” said Quelland, who has been a coach in the program since 2013. “There’s a lot of talent.
“Truthfully, I believe we are a year ahead of where I thought we’d be. I knew we had the right pieces, but them coming together and jelling as soon as they have is really impressive.”
The team is still really young, with two players set to age out after this season.
Quelland said the key is the concepts of unselfishness and brotherhood that former head coach and general manager Lance Coz made the cornerstones of the program.
The Twins won state titles in 1991, 1995, 2012 and 2016, and finished second in 1984, 2008 and 2015.
Quelland was the head coach of the 2016 team, but he’ll say he never felt he was the leader of the program until Coz died in 2020.
Last season, the Twins were seeded second in their group and didn’t make the semis. The previous two seasons, Post 20 lost in the semis.
“They bought into it, and became really good teammates and positive in the dugouts,” Quelland said of this year’s team. “They just have jelled well enough where they seem like they’ve been together for years, with their interpersonal communication and the way they joke with each other.
“They enjoy each other tremendously.”
The Twins are made up of players from four Division II high schools — Soldotna, Kenai Central, Homer and Kodiak.
Watching the Division II state tourney this year, where the Stars won for a fourth straight time, Quelland said he was confident his team would be strong defensively. That has panned out.
“You read those box scores where teams have five or six errors in a game,” he said. “We rarely, if ever, have that. One, maybe two.”
On the mound, Quelland said plenty of pitchers have been given opportunity and responded.
The three returning starters from last season are Matthew Schilling, Jacob Joanis and Jayden Stuyvesant. Catcher Ari Miller, who Quelland has constantly credited with being a rock behind the plate, also was in and out of the starting lineup.
Only Schilling and Joanis ate up a lot of innings on the mound last season, so the team had massive holes to fill there.
The biggest surprise has been Stuyvesant, who mostly played catcher for the Twins last season. This spring for the Stars, Stuyvesant was injured for the bulk of the season and pitched sparingly.
In a relief role for the Twins, he’s 2-0 with a 0.77 ERA in 27 1-3 innings. Quelland called Stuyvesant one of the best pitchers in the state.
“He has not failed us,” Quelland said. “We put him in bad situations, and he prevails. His maturity has blossomed this year and he’s one of the leaders of the team.”
Jack Harper didn’t play with the AA team last year and pitched the Thursday game for SoHi at the Division II state tourney, with Colby Sturman getting the Friday game and Trenton Ohnemus getting the championship.
Harper got the opportunity to be the top starter for the Twins and responded. He’s 7-0 with a 2.15 ERA in 42 1-3 innings pitched.
“He’s our guy,” Quelland said. “He just doesn’t get rattled in any of the situations. He’s very low key, almost one of those guys where you’ve got to check to see if he’s got a pulse.”
Schilling and Joanis also will be counted on for key innings in a tournament where pitching depth is vital. Schilling is 3-1 with a 4.94 ERA in 28 1-3 innings, while Joanis is 3-3 with a 3.21 ERA in 24 innings.
Malakai BeDunnah also has been a key middle reliever for the Twins. He’s 3-0 with a 1.08 ERA in 26 innings.
“He’s 5-foot-5, and he thinks he’s 6-foot-6, with that attitude,” Quelland said. “He’s invincible.”
The championship squad will have to play five games in six days. With all the pitchers comfortable in roles, Quelland said the pitching staff can hold up.
“I think we can manage it,” he said. “I don’t know if we have the arms that other teams have, but I think we have enough arms and ability to get through the tournament.
“I’m not going in not thinking we can win.”
Offensively, the Twins have been a work in progress. It always takes all the Division II players some time to adjust to better pitching, but Post 20 has been able to score enough runs to win 14 straight.
“We always tell the guys we don’t need all nine people to hit,” Quelland said. “We only need five of you to hit today. We just need five, and especially timeliness.
“And they respond.”
Post 20 has a pair of nice table setters at the top of the lineup, with Schilling hitting .456 and Daniel Steffensen hitting .353.
In the heart of the order, Joanis is hitting .356 and Stuyvesant is at .299.
Homer’s Clyde Clemens has excelled in the No. 9 slot, hitting .315. Jackson Koetitz has hit at a .312 clip.
Quelland said success in the tournament comes down to pitching and matchups. Last year, the Twins fell to South 1-0 on the first day of the tournament, with David Feigner of the Wolverines outdueling Ohnemus, and it put Post 20 in a hole out of which it never climbed.
“Any of these teams can win,” Quelland said. “There’s not a team in the top eight that can’t win. They have a history of winning.”
