Homestand could clinch season title

WASILLA — With three games left in regular American Legion Baseball league play, the Alaska Road Warriors are looking to recapture the magic that saw the team win its first eight games and sprint to a large lead in the league standings.

“If we win those games, we’re in,” head coach Myrl Thompson said about earning the top seed in next weekend’s state tournament. “But South’s really tough and they’re right on our heals, as is Juneau.”

With 64 points, the Road Warriors (19-7 overall, 15-4 league) lead second-place South (18-7, 13-4) by eight points and third-place Juneau (16-5, 13-3) by nine.

A pair of league losses to Juneau over the weekend — 10-1 Sunday and 12-2 Saturday, sandwiched in with an 8-5 Wasilla non-league win in the second game of a Saturday doubleheader — made the final week of the season interesting, Thompson said. Although a nine-point lead with three games left may seem like a lot, Juneau could win out and capture first place based on having one fewer loss than the Road Warriors.

“Juneau could conceivable be ahead of us because they have that one less loss than us,” he said. “If they win out, they could win it because of that.”

But the local squad can’t worry about what Juneau may or may not do in its final games, Thompson said.

“We have to get the focus back and be more disciplined on the field and off the field,” he said. “If you’re not ready for every pitch, you make those mental mistakes.”

Those mistakes were evident against Juneau Saturday and Sunday, the coach said.

“They lived up to expectations,” he said of a talented Juneau team. “We played horribly — ‘poorly’ would not fully explain how we played — a lot of errors, a lot of mental mistakes, a whole litany of wrong playing.”

Against a fundamentally sound team, those mistakes prove costly, Thompson said.

“They didn’t miss a beat on taking advantage of our mistakes,” he said.

After a stretch of playing 11 games in 10 days, Thompson said his Road Warriors will rest up a little Monday and Tuesday before starting their final homestand of the summer.

“Any season’s a mixture of good and bad and the more good you get, the better,” he said. “We’ve had some atrocious games these past 10 days, but we’ve also played really well, too. Hopefully, we’ll rest up some arms and some sore bodies.”

The Road Warriors will open their final homestand at 6: 30 p.m., Wednesday at Lou McManus Field in Wasilla against South. They host Dimond at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, then close the regular season at 1 p.m., Saturday against Eagle River.

Contact Greg Johnson at 352-2269 or greg.johnson@frontiersman.com.