Soldotna defeats Kenai for 4th straight Division II state baseball crown

Soldotna defeated Kenai Central 8-2 on Saturday to win the Division II state baseball tournament at Coral Seymour Memorial Park in Kenai.

The Stars won for the fourth straight season, with head coach Ken Gibson improving to 12-0 in state tournament play. SoHi finished 18-9-2 after winning its last 15 games.

“It’s been a great four years,” said Soldotna senior Tucker Blough, who was on three of the title teams after missing the postseason as a freshman due to injury. “Coach Ken does an awesome job.

“All the coaches and great parents supporting the team so coach Ken isn’t too busy. Everybody pitches in.”

Brett Hostetler, Trenton Ohnemus, Colby Sturman and Ari Miller were on all four title teams. Seniors Blough, Wyatt Gagnon and Brenden Theel were on the last three title teams.

“It feels unreal,” Hostetler said. “It’s straight up magic. All the playoff runs we’ve done, all the teams that I’ve got to play with, it’s been beautiful.

“It’s been so special to me. It’s something that happens to very few people.”

Ohnemus went the distance and was the winning pitcher in the state final for the third straight season. Ohnemus also picked up a win at state as a freshman with three innings of scoreless, hitless relief in the semifinal.

Miller, a catcher, said it’s no secret why the Stars have had such a run at state. He said the pitching has always been solid.

It started with the top two in Ohnemus and Sturman, who got the win in the semifinal. It continued with Theel, who won in the first round, and the relievers.

“We probably had the two best pitchers in Division II easy,” Miller said. “And then having Brenden be the third guy is just super helpful.”

Rainy weather threatened the title game and the Alaska School Activities Association had to cancel the third- and fourth-place games.

The championship was originally scheduled for 4:30 p.m, but Friday ASAA decided to move it up to 11:30 a.m. The game didn’t start until 4:45 p.m. as John Kennedy, the founding head coach of the Kenai program, and a small army of volunteers rounded up by host school Kenai toiled for hours.

“John Kennedy made sure the field was playable,” Kenai head coach Christian Stephanos said after finishing 16-5. “Our admin did lots of things behind the scenes.

“Our boosters went above and beyond, trying to get volunteers for the field, volunteers for the snack shack, volunteers for this, that and the other.”

It was a long wait for the players as rain poured down early in the day.

“I’m not gonna lie,” said Blough, who thanked parents Judson and Marie Blough for all the support. “This morning, I was hoping they would be able to postpone it to tomorrow or next week or something.

“The grounds crew did a great job. The field was in way better condition than I thought it would be.”

Hostetler said the early innings were tense because nobody knew how the field would play.

Ohnemus helped ease his fielders into the game by striking out seven in the first three innings, when the conditions were at their worst.

“It was slick and the ball was wet,” Ohnemus said of fielding conditions. “That’s not a good combo.”

Gibson said Ohnemus has had an incredible mound presence going back to Little League and that state semifinal as a freshman.

“When he’s up there doing that, everybody just falls in behind and believes they’re going to win, right?” Gibson said. “They know it’s going to be fine and he lives for the big moments.

“He doesn’t act anything crazy, but he’s competitive.”

Kenai starter Braden Smith also started strong with two strikeouts in the first inning.

While SoHi’s first three state titles came against teams piecing together pitching for the championship game, Smith was not that. He had pitched a complete game to top the Stars 4-3 in late April.

The Kardinals also had No. 2 Jacob Joanis in relief.

“It just brings out the best when you have that better pitcher,” Hostetler said. “So I was really appreciative that we went up against Braden and Jake and got to see that better pitching.”

The biggest rally of the game came in the second inning, when the Stars scored five runs after two were out on four hits and two walks. The Kardinals struggled with footing during the rally.

“We were having kids slip left and right,” Stephanos said. “We even switched cleats halfway through and we were still slipping.

“It is what it is. They played on the same field we did.”

With a five-run lead and Ohnemus clicking, it would be a long road back for the Kardinals.

“Everything was working,” Ohnemus said of his two-team fastball, four-seam fastball and slider.

Kenai was able to cut the gap to 5-2 in the top of the fourth when Smith, who was 2 for 3, and Logan Mese hit triples that had Soldotna outfielders sliding around a bit.

SoHi answered with two runs in the bottom of the fourth and with another in the fifth.

Ohnemus, who will play baseball at Feather River community college in California, allowed the two runs on three hits in seven innings while walking two and striking out 13.

The Stars finished 2-1 against Kenai this season and repeated a 2023 victory over Kenai in the title game.

Matthew Schilling led SoHi by going 2 for 4 with a run and an RBI. The Stars got runs and hits from seven of the nine spots in their lineup.

Smith gave up seven runs on seven hits with three walks and five strikeouts in four innings, while Jacob Joanis gave up a run on a hit with two walks and five strikeouts in two innings.

The Kards say goodbye to the seven seniors on the tournament roster — Mese, Gabe Joanis, Everett Chamberlain, Smith, Avery Martin, Keoni Beddow and Jacob Katzenberger.

“This team was resilient all season,” Stephanos said. “I told them, if we had to play Soldotna again tomorrow, they’d take it to them, because they bounce back like nobody’s business.”

Soldotna now moves up to Division I, where the program has not won a game in three trips to the state tournament. The Division II tournament began in 2021, and the Stars finished 13-2 at the event.

Gibson gave credit to athletic director Phil Leck for giving the team a competitive schedule to transition to next year.

SoHi was 3-8-2 against Division I competition. Seven of those games were against teams that would go to the semifinals at Division I state, while 12 of those games were against teams that qualified for state.

Gibson said those good Division I teams are comfortable in close games.

“I feel like this team here is more like that than any team I’ve had,” he said. “Like this game here, they’d score a few runs, and our guys were like, ‘Yea. OK.’

“They’re very calm and go about doing their business.”

State tournament awards

Academic award — Palmer.

Sportsmanship award — Monroe Catholic.

All tournament — Everett Chamberlain, Kenai; Aidan McDonnell, Houston; Tucker Blough, Soldotna; Reed Craner, Palmer; Henry Wedvik, Homer; Jacob Joanis, Kenai; Caleb Korhonen, North Pole; Matthew Schilling, Soldotna; Trenton Ohnemus, Soldotna; Gavin Peterson, Kodiak; Blake Moore, Monroe Catholic; Logan Mese, Kenai.