Baserunning mistakes and cold bats down the stretch put the Miners down 1-0 in the ABL Championship Series

PALMER - The Miners hit 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position on Friday night. That included a stretch from the 5th to 9th innings where Mat-Su stranded at least one runner in every frame. They left two guys on in each of the 6th, 7th, and 8th innings. The green and gold ultimately lost 4-1 to the Glacier Pilots in Game 1 of the best-of-three series.

But in the first half of the contest, the Miners continued to make life difficult on themselves by being caught on the basepath.

In the bottom of the 1st, Mat-Su laced back-to-back singles. With first baseman Cooper Vest on second and left fielder Alex Vergara on 1st, catcher Steven Lancia roped a line drive at Anchorage shortstop Will Bermudez. He caught it and threw on to second base to get Vest, who anticipated it being a base hit. An honest mistake from Vest. That was just a classic case of baseball bad luck.

But in the second inning, things turned almost comedic. Once again the home team got both of its first two batters aboard. Designated hitter Maddox Haley was at second base and second baseman Nolan Tucker was at first base with center fielder Sebastian Tomerlin at the plate. But Anchorage starter Ian Torpey and Bermudez tag-teamed to sneak in and pick off Haley at second. The Pilots throughout the season had snuck up behind runners at second base but they had never actually succeeded in picking off a Miners baserunner there, until Friday of course.

Tomerlin would strike out. Then, with third baseman Kaleb Hannahs at the dish, Tucker took a big secondary lead and Pilots catcher Troy Harding threw over to first and got him out. For the first time all season the Miners were picked off twice in the same inning.

The very next frame for Mat-Su at the plate, the inning ended with Torpey picking off Vergara. To Vergara’s credit, perhaps, he made it into a rundown before being tagged out. Also to his credit he had just tied the game on a rip to left field that scored Hannahs. But that was the third time in a span of two innings that the green and gold got picked off.

Pitching was overall strong once again for the Miners. Nebraska righty Will Rizzo made his second start of the season and reached the 6th inning. He retired six straight batters in the 4th and 5th frames before getting into trouble in the 6th. Larry Westall, the sidearmer out of Incarante

Word, took over for him with the bases loaded and got Pilots third baseman Nathan Barraza to ground into a 5-4-3 double play.

Westall got himself into trouble in the top of the 7th. Left fielder Elijah Rodiguez singled to begin the inning. Two batters later, the nine-batter Andrew Nykoluk, who had previously been hitless since July 23rd, lined a double right on the right-field line. With runners on second and third with one out, leadoff man Andrew Lamb singled to score both to make it 4-1.

Mario Bejarano and Matthew Lightall pitched the 8th and 9th innings respectively for Ty LeBrun’s squad.

Anchorage reliever Max Martin, who’s allowed just one earned run all season, surrendered just one base hit against the 12 Mat-Su batters that he faced. He did walk two hitters and hit Haley with a pitch, but whenever he needed to he got outs.

Saturday’s game is at 4. If the Miners win that, they’ll force a Game 3 for all the marbles on Sunday. Saturday’s expected starters are Casey Euper for the Pilots and Drew Christo for the Miners.