Mat-Su's championship dream falls short to Anchorage

PALMER -- Late rallies cost the Mat-Su Miners dearly in their 4-2 home loss to the Anchorage Glacier Pilots to surrender the Alaska Baseball League Championship on Saturday evening.

Anchorage shortstop Will Bermudez set the tone with a two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning for his second dinger of the series after going without a homer during the regular season or Semi-Final.

The Pilots acted as the home team because the middle game of every series in the A.B.L. has the lower seed act as the home squad. Mat-Su is 0-3 when playing at home as the visiting team.

That home run seemed like the game’s only gasp of action for a while as Anchorage failed to record another hit until the sixth.

Mat-Su stranded 12 runners on base with five of them being left in scoring position.

The M’s climbed back into the action in the seventh inning when center fielder Alex Vergara sent a soft chopper up the middle with runners on the corners. Anchorage second baseman Andrew Nykoluk found the ball on the run, and chucked it to the Miners dugout allowing a run to score.

The Valley tied it up in the top of the eighth when shortstop Emilio Barreras slapped an R.B.I. single to score second baseman Nolan Tucker.

Mat-Su’s crowd came to life with the rally, but quickly fell quiet in the following frame when Anchorage crashed the party. Center fielder Blake Jackson slammed a double to lead off the bottom of the eighth. Right fielder Garrison Berkley followed up with a bunt, and third baseman Kaleb Hannahs misfired on his throw to first base, bringing Jackson home and moving Berkley to third. Designated hitter Jacob Stinson singled Berkley home to make it a 4-2 Pilots lead.

Mat-Su surrendered in order in the top of the ninth inning resulting in an Anchorage dogpile and the Glacier Pilots’ third-straight Top of the World Series title.