Tuesday: Kenai baseball uses late rally to topple Soldotna

The Kenai Central baseball team scored seven runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to topple Soldotna 11-10 on Tuesday in Southcentral Conference action at the Kenai Little League fields.

The Kardinals move to 3-2 in the league and 3-2 overall, while the Stars fall to 0-1 and 2-3.

SoHi reliever Wyatt Gagnon started the bottom of the seventh by getting freshman Daniel Steffensen to fly out to center field, and SoHi’s 10-4 lead looked safe as darkness creeped over a field beset by temperatures in the mid-30s and a light rain.

Kenai would heat things up quickly, with nine straight batters reaching base. Steffensen won it with a walkoff single that scored Zane Pellegrom and Jayden Sandahl. The nine straight had reached on five hits, two walks and two hit batters.

Soldotna coach Ken Gibson said this was the third straight season Kenai has used its explosive bats to come back and defeat the Stars.

“They are a really good hitting team,” Gibson said. “If you don’t stay on top of your pitching, if you walk people, they make you pay.

“They make you pay every time.”

Soldotna did not trail in the game until Steffensen’s hit. The Stars led 2-0 in the third before Kenai came back to tie it in the bottom of the inning. SoHi then led 5-3 after five and 9-4 after six.

“That’s what we talked about — that the game is long and you can’t let one inning or two innings even dictate the outcome of the game,” Kenai head coach Luke Oliver said. “They did a good job because they had some errors tonight. We had too many walks.

“But we’ll try and tighten those things up.”

Kenai pitchers Charlie Chamberlain, Braden Smith, Jackson Marion and Gabe Joanis combined to walk 10. The Kardinals also made seven errors.

Oliver said the team has just three starting seniors, and a bunch of freshmen and sophomores. He said Kenai is fine at the plate. The key will be playing better defense and walking fewer batters.

“If we can hit like that, maybe we can balance it out,” he said. “But we need to tighten up on defense a little bit, tighten up the pitching a little bit.”

Gibson also has a young team, losing five seniors from the squad that won the Division II state championship last season. The Stars have three starting seniors this season.

“We’ve got a lot of sophomores starting,” Gibson said. “They’re good ballplayers, but they haven’t gone through a lot of these yet.

“They’re learning.”

Gibson credited Derrick Jones with a solid start on the mound. Jones gave up four runs in six innings.

For Kenai, Owen Whicker had two RBIs, Steffensen was 3 for 5 with three RBIs, Chamberlain was 2 for 4 with two RBIs, Joanis was 2 for 3 and Sandahl scored three runs.

Before Kenai’s big rally, the biggest offensive highlight of the game came from SoHi’s Sage Cruz. Cruz led off the top of the fifth inning with a home run to left center off of Smith.

The ball splashed down in the large bank of snow still rimming the outfield behind the fence. The snow is what’s leftover from a winter that has only allowed Kenai a few weeks practice on its field, and only allowed the Stars a few days of practice on their field.

Gibson said that was the first time he’d seen a home run lodge in a snowbank.

“They have a nice, big pile of snow out there in left,” he said. “That’s going to be there for a while. We may see a few more.”

Cruz finished 2 for 3 with three runs and two RBIs, while Jones had two runs, Gagnon had two runs and Brayden Hostetler had a pair of RBIs.

Kodiak 11, Homer 2

The visiting Mariners fell to 0-2 in the Southcentral Conference and 0-2 overall with the Tuesday loss.

Mylan Johnson, CJ Burns, Oak Anderson and Zach Marley had the hits for Homer, while Clyde Clemons and Burns had runs. Camden Wise and Anderson had RBIs.

Johnson was the best at keeping Kodiak off the scoreboard, finishing the game with 1 1-3 scoreless innings, allowing two hits and two walks while fanning one.