The No. 3 seed American Legion Twins defeated No. 6 Palmer 2-1 on Thursday on Day 1 of the 71st Alaska Legion Baseball State Tournament at Mulcahy Stadium in Anchorage.
The tournament has two pools of four teams each. Pool play runs through Sunday, and the top two teams out of each pool advance to Monday’s semifinals.
The Twins (20-10-1 overall) have Friday off before playing No. 8 South at noon Saturday and No. 1 Eagle River at 3 p.m. Sunday.
Twins coach Robb Quelland said the Pioneers had been playing great baseball in July, and that included an 8-1 victory over the Twins on July 11.
With Landon Guggenmos, one of the top pitchers in the state, on the hill for Palmer, the degree of difficulty only increased.
“They’re competitive, scrappy and well coached,” Quelland said of the Pioneers.
The Twins were able to walk off on the Pioneers in the seventh inning as Post 20’s Gabe Smith completed a remarkable comeback to baseball.
Quelland said Smith had not played in a live game in 12 months due to an injury sustained in an accident.
“He had faith in the man above that he was going to be able to play this year,” Quelland said. “With all the work he put in and his family’s support, the medical team cleared him to play.
“He’s a great person to have on the team.”
Not surprisingly, Smith, playing at designated hitter, struck out in his first two plate appearances against Guggenmos.
“After not seeing live pitching, he was against one of the best pitchers in the state,” Quelland said. “He had some bad swings, but he came out and worked on it.
“It paid off in the seventh.”
Smith led off the seventh with a single. Andrew Pieh then struck out, but the third strike got away from the catcher, allowing Smith to scamper to second base.
Quelland then inserted Levi Mickelson to run for Smith. After catcher Jayden Stuyvesant was hit by a pitch, Quelland put Simon Grenier in to run for Stuyvesant.
Derrick Jones then had a single to short center field. Quelland gave credit to Mickelson for aggressive base running from second base. The coach said it would have taken a perfect throw to get Mickelson at the plate, and Palmer couldn’t produce it.
Quelland said there was little question he was sending Mickelson.
“These are short tournaments, and you have the preserve pitching,” Quelland said. “Palmer’s too good not to take advantage of anything.”
Guggenmos went 6 1-3 innings, giving up two runs on four hits while walking one and striking out eight. Palmer did not commit any errors.
Post 20’s Malakai Olson and Trenton Ohnemus were able to get the better of Guggenmos.
Olson went four innings, giving up a run on three hits while walking three and striking out four.
The Twins had a couple of errors, but Quelland said a pickoff by Olson and caught stealing by Stuyvesant were huge for Post 20.
“We have a really strong pitching staff and we have it pretty much planned out for a five-game tournament,” Quelland said. “We had to go longer with (Olson) than we wanted to, but these are the games you’ve got to win.
“There’s no reason to save a guy for tomorrow if you’re not playing.”
Ohnemus pitched a scoreless three innings, giving up just a hit while walking one and striking out two.
The Twins took the lead in the second inning when Jace Crall was hit by a pitch. After Gabe Smith struck out, Pieh walked and Stuyvesant had in infield single to load the bases.
Jones struck out, but Braden Smith beat out an infield single to short to score Crall.
The Pioneers came right back to tie the game in the top of the third inning when Boman Marks led off with a double and eventually came around to score.
“People were saying after the game that this is what Legion baseball is supposed to look like,” Quelland said. “Each team should only have one or two runs when the pitching is that good.”
In the other game in Post 20’s pool Thursday, Eagle River defeated South 2-1.
In the other pool, No. 5 Dimond topped No. 4 Chugiak 6-2 and No. 2 Service topped No. 7 West 8-2.
