Saturday baseball: Wasilla tops SoHi; Palmer beats Kenai

The Wasilla baseball team defeated Soldotna 4-2 in Saturday nonconference action at the Soldotna Little League fields.

The Warriors move to 15-3 overall, while the Stars fall to 7-5.

Both Wasilla head coach Ken Ottinger and Soldotna head coach Ken Gibson came away happy their squads used the nonconference contest to get better.

The Warriors were able to finish sweeping a three-game road trip to the Kenai Peninsula with the victory Saturday.

The grind of the travel gave the Wasilla pitchers a chance to showcase mental toughness and the Wasilla offense a chance to exhibit opportunism.

“It’s been a long weekend sleeping on gym floors and long bus rides,” Ottinger said. “Everybody’s tired. The coaches are tired. Everybody’s tired.

“So we kind of expected it’d be a little slow. I just told them three wins on the road is a good weekend.”

Gibson said the Stars were hit by injuries Saturday, starting the game without the preferred second baseman then quickly losing the third baseman and starting pitcher.

The Soldotna coach loves the depth of this team, and said that depth was apparent as the Division II Stars were able to stick with the Division I Warriors.

“We got great play from the other guys in positions they haven’t been playing,” Gibson said.

The Stars are the defending Division II champs, while the Warriors won the state title in 2019. Starting with the 2021 season, baseball was divided into two divisions and the fierce conference rivalry of Wasilla and SoHi was broken up.

Gibson said Wasilla has posted some big scores against Soldotna since the breakup, so he said it’s an encouraging sign his team lost 12-9 to the Warriors on April 28 before the Saturday loss.

“This year, we’ve had two decent games where we haven’t had a lot of errors,” Gibson said. “If we can play Wasilla close, I feel like we’ve had a good game.”

The Warriors got all their runs in the second inning against Colby Sturman.

With one out, Wasilla had the bases loaded after Whalen Halverson and Wyatt Walling singled and Jimmy Lackey was hit by a pitch.

Jaxson Wright then hit a hard grounder back to Sturman, who fielded the ball and got Halverson at home. But Wright’s grounder struck Sturman on the wrist of his pitching hand.

Sturman stayed in for a walk, hit batter and two wild pitches that scored the four runs. He got out of the inning with a strikeout but was pulled due to the injury.

The good news for the Stars is Andrew Pieh came in and threw five impressive innings, keeping the Warriors off the board with three hits, no walks and five strikeouts.

“I think Colby had done a good job, and then Andrew came in, and one of the best things they did was just keeping the ball low when they needed to,” Gibson said. “It kept them from getting a lot of really solid hits.”

Meanwhile, Wasilla pitchers Oscar Savala and Ramon Guzman combined to no-hit the Stars through the first five innings.

SoHi still had opportunities. Savala walked the bases full in the first inning with one out, but escaped without damage.

In the fifth inning, a hit batter and two walks by Guzman loaded the bases with two outs, but he got a big strikeout to end the inning.

“It was good to see them not fold, focus down and just get the job done,” Ottinger said. “They didn’t allow any big damage.”

George Mcsorely came on in the top of the sixth and Jayden Stuyvesant greeted him with a single to break up the no-hitter. Stuyvesant would scored SoHi’s first run of the game on a sacrifice fly by Easton Hawkins.

In the seventh, Stuyvesant would single in Pieh to make it 4-2. SoHi got the tying run at first with two outs, but McSorely got out of the jam with a grounder.

Gibson said one reason the Stars were not able to score more of the runners in scoring position was the work of Wasilla catcher Pedro Camacho.

“Their catcher is fantastic,” Gibson said. “He just stopped everything. And he’s got a rocket for an arm, so it’s not like I was sending guys.”

Ottinger said Camacho was the MVP of the conference last season and is arguably the best catcher in the state.

“He’s an amazing kid,” Ottinger said. “He’s always energetic and he does a great job behind the plate for us.”

Camacho also led the Warriors at the plate by going 2 for 3 with a run and an RBI.

Stuyvesant finished 2 for 3 with a run and an RBI for the Stars. He subbed in at third base for Sage Cruz after Cruz felt tightness in his elbow. Stuyvesant, who also made a couple nice plays at third, was one of the subs Gibson was excited about.

Tucker Blough also was called on to play second after Trenton Ohnemus had some shoulder stiffness after his last start. Gibson said said Blough is a handy utility player who can play outfield, infield and catcher.

Gibson also got JV players Hawkins, at right field, and Matthew Schilling at left field, into the game. He said both did a great job.

Palmer 15, Kenai 2

The Kardinals dropped a Northern Lights Conference game in five innings Saturday at the Kenai Little League fields to fall to 6-3 in the league and 6-4 overall.

Palmer scored three in the first, four in the third and eight in the fifth. The Kards got their two runs in the fifth.

Braden Smith and Everett Chamberlain had the hits for Kenai, while Owen Whicker and Chamberlain had the runs.