The American Legion Twins defeated South 4-2 on Sunday in Anchorage to wrap up the American Division title on the final day of the regular season.
Both Post 20 and South finished with 13-5 records, but the Twins got the tiebreaker because they took both league games this season.
Twins coach Robb Quelland said the state tournament, which begins Friday, seeds all teams based on record regardless of division. Since the National Division had three teams finish with better records than the Twins, Quelland expects the Twins (21-11-1 overall) to get the No. 4 seed.
The Twins started the road trip with a Friday loss to Service and a Saturday loss to Ketchikan, but ended it by beating Ketchikan on Saturday and then nabbed the key victory Sunday.
“At some point in the season, you’re going to have adversity,” Quelland said. “We didn’t come out and do what we were supposed to do in the first two games.
“We collected our thoughts and talked about where we wanted to go and came out and played two games strong.”
The Twins jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the top of the first inning against South.
“They came out excited to play today,” Quelland said of his team. “South and Kenai have such a long history.
“They were looking for some redemption after losing to us at our house.”
The four runs would be all Mose Hayes needed. He worked 6 2-3 innings, giving up two runs on five hits while walking five and striking out seven.
Seth Adkins got the final out without allowing a hit or a run.
“Again, he just comes out and does his work,” Quelland said of Hayes. “No highs, no lows. He came out and showed his dominance again.”
Quelland added that Adkins did a great job calling the game behind the plate and that it is good to see him healthy again.
Hayes added two hits at the plate, while Tanner Ussing also added two hits. Also for the Twins, Jeremy Kupferschmid, David Michael and Davey Belger had hits. Belger also had two RBIs.
Quelland added that Michael showed amazing range at shortstop by getting to two fly balls and another liner.
