Early-season mistakes plague Road Warriors legion squad

June 17, 2005

DARRELL L. BREESE/Frontiersman reporter

WASILLA - One of the most exciting things about the Alaska Road Warriors American Legion Baseball team is that it is made up of the top players from the high schools throughout the Valley.

However, Tuesday night as they hosted the Post 33 Chugiak American Legion team at McManus Field, having the top players from the Valley high schools was part of the problem.

"We are still learning how to play with each other," Road Warrior head coach Pete Powell said. "We have players from Palmer, Colony and Wasilla playing in the infield. Communication will take a little while to figure out."

Three times during the game a Chugiak player lifted a hit over the head of the Road Warriors infield and just shy of the outfielder. Each time, three or four Warriors converged on the ball and none of them made a play.

Each of those base runners managed to make their way around the bases and score, helping Chugiak secure a 3-2 win.

"It is just early season stuff," Powell said. "Once we get all the kinks worked out we should be fine.

In addition to the communication whoas, the Warriors struggled at the plate, hitting 11 fly balls that never left the infield.

"We were bitten by the fly bug tonight," Powell said. "When we did get runners in scoring position we didn't get any production from our five, six and seven

batters."

When the Warriors managed to hit the ball, they struck it with authority.

Joe Hess led off the bottom of the third inning with a double into left-center field. He eventually scored when David Breck singled.

Centerfielder Josh Morlan tripled down the first base line in the fifth and scored on a sacrifice fly from David Doerr. Joe Smith added a double later in the inning, but was left stranded when an infield fly ball ended the inning.

The Post 33 squad scored all of their runs off starter, Hess, who handed the pitching duties over to Rory Prunella after three innings. Prunella shut down Chugiak allowing two hits and striking out four batters over the next three innings.

The Road Warriors have a make-up game against the Dimond American Legion Post scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m. at McManus Field. Dimond originally was to have played in Wasilla on June 11, but the contest was cancelled due to extremely wet field conditions.