Extra innings

PALMER — West Valley and Colony traded jabs for eight innings. but it was West Valley senior Kyle Lester who had the knock out blow.

Lester’s run-scoring double in the top of the eighth inning gave West Valley an 8-7 win over the Knights during the ASAA/First National Bank State Baseball Championships fourth-place game at Hermon Brothers Field on Saturday.

“We did some things right, but the bottom line is, we did more things wrong than we did right,” Colony head coach Jamie Mayo said of his Knights squad, which was plagued by atypical mistakes during the final afternoon of the three-day state championships. “In a game like this, the final score was going to be determined by who made the least amount of mistakes. And honestly, we made at least one more than they did.”

Mayo said he was most frustrated with a handful of mental mistakes which seemed to prevent Colony from firmly grabbing hold of a contest that teeder-toddered back and forth between the Knights, the Southcentral Conference champions, and West Valley, the Mid-Alaska Conference runner-up.

“Simple little fundamental things and we weren’t doing them,” Mayo said. “There was a completely different attitude, mentality from this team this whole tournament. I don’t know if they thought they could do better, should do better. I don’t know exactly what, but I know we did do a lot of really, really uncharecteristic things in this game.”

After surrendering an early three-run West Valley advantage, Colony scored four times in the bottom of the fourth to take the 4-3 lead.

The Knights relinquished that lead during West Valley’s four-run fifith and then tied the game with three more runs in the bottom of the inning.

Sophomore Eddie Lee reached on an error and scored in the fifth to tie the game at 7-7. With the Knights down 7-5 midway through the fifth, senior Matt Packa led off with an infield single and later scored Lee reached on the error.

Sophomore Taylor Palmer— who led the Knights with three hits in the game — singled and scored to bring Colony within one run.

Colony broke on to the scorboard in the bottom of the fourth when Packa was forced across the plate after junior J.D. Mayo was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Packa led off the inning with a single to right field, and freshman Damon Hammer and senior Steve Sinnett both drew walks to load the bases.

Senior Rhowe Stefanski beat out a throw to first and drove in Hammer with an infield single to cut the score to 3-2. Junior Kody Ziter’s two-run single to left field gave the Knights the 4-3 lead.

With three straight singles by sophomore Jace Lovell, freshman Justin Woods and senior Gavin Meggert, West Valley took the 7-4 lead in the fifth and forced Packa — Colony’s starting pitcher — off the mound.

Junior Mike Wagner took over and allowed just two hits in 3 1/3 innings. He also struck out a batter.

“Mike has done an outstanding job for us all year,” Mayo said.

“He’s pitched in at least 10 games this year and he hadn’t given up an earned run until today.”

Mayo said overall, pitching was a strength for the Knights during the tourney.

“One good thing that we did was pitching,” Mayo said.

Junior Colter Peterson pitched seven strong innings during a first-round loss to Chugiak.

Senior Rhowe Stefanski was steller on the second day, pitching six innings against Lathrop to get the win. Wagner retired three of the four Malemutes he faced in the seventh to save the 3-2 victory.

“I think was had some fairly good, consistent pitching through the whole tournament,” Mayo said.

While West Valley secured fourth place with the win, the Knights — who finished third in state last season — were forced to settle for sixth.

Colony will lose only three seniors — Sinnett, Stefanski and Packa — from a program that finished undefeated in Southcentral Confernece play for the second straight year. Mayo said the strong junior class and underclassmen who will return need to use this loss as a learning experience.

“I certainly hope they’ve learned a lesson,” Mayo said.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.