The Soldotna baseball team defeated Kenai Central 7-4 on Saturday in Northern Lights Conference action at the Kenai Little League fields.
The Stars avenged an April 28 loss to the Kards to move to 3-1 in the league and 6-9-2 overall. The Kardinals drop to 2-3 and 5-3.
The game was competitive, but not crisp.
Soldotna had six hits, walked eight times and made four errors. Two of the four runs Kenai scored were earned.
The Kardinals had four hits, walked 11 times and made six errors. Two of Soldotna’s seven runs were earned.
SoHi head coach Ken Gibson noted the walks were not for lack of effort.
“None of them gave it away easy,” he said. “They gave it away, but they didn’t give it away easy.
“They were all like 3-2 counts, not too many just straight walks.”
Colby Sturman started for SoHi and went 2 2-3 innings, yielding three runs — one earned — on one hit while walking six and striking out six.
Soldotna reliever Matthew Schilling was similar in 2 1-3 innings of relief, giving up an earned run on two hits while walking four and striking out two.
Kenai starter Jacob Joanis battled through five innings, giving up seven runs — two earned — on six hits while walking six and striking out six.
The difference in the game was a five-run third inning by the Stars. The difference in that inning was the speed of Schilling. Schilling could have gotten out three separate times in the inning, but his speed saved him each time.
With one on and nobody out, Schilling bunted and beat it out for a hit.
“He’s such a weapon,” Gibson said of Schilling. “He has so much speed I’d actually like him to look to bunt more, based on being so fast.”
With one out, Schilling was on second when a grounder was hit to the left side of the infield and he was caught in a rundown. He squeezed out of the pickle and got back to second safely.
The next batter, Wyatt Gagnon, hit a grounder to third and Schilling managed to beat the attempt at the force play to open the floodgates.
“We had some early inning errors that resulted in runs on the board,” Kenai head coach Christian Stephanos said. “Without those, it’s a much closer game.”
Stephanos loved the way Joanis battled throughout, including picking two runners off second base.
“I’m going to call him the king of the pickoff,” Stephanos said.
The Stars led 7-4 after five innings, when Kenai reliever Jacob Katzenberger and SoHi reliever Trenton Ohnemus restored some order to the proceedings.
Katzenberger threw two scoreless, hitless innings while walking two and punching out two.
Ohnemus closed the door with two scoreless innings, giving up a hit and a walk while whiffing six.
“I know if I bring him in — it doesn’t matter where it is in the game, I can use him as closer — he’s going to throw strikes,” Gibson said of Ohnemus. “And that’s what worked.”
Ohnemus threw 27 of his 39 pitches for strikes, the only pitcher in the game to throw more than 50% of his pitches for strikes.
Tucker Blough led SoHi at the plate by going 2 for 2 with two runs and two RBIs. Everett Chamberlain scored twice for Kenai.
