Miners cap regular season with victory

FAIRBANKS — Their four-game road trip to the Interior may have not gone as well as they’d hoped, but the Mat-Su Miners were able to cap their trek and regular season on a winning note.

Mat-Su used three ninth-inning runs to rally to a 4-3 win over the Alaska Goldpanners at Growden Park in Fairbanks Saturday evening.

Catcher Nick LaFace smacked a two-run double in the ninth to spark the Miners and help Mat-Su finish the season 20-15, and notch its ninth 20-win season in the last 10 seasons.

Drew Smith pitched three innings of scoreless relief and earned the win on the mound for the Miners, who trailed 3-1 heading into the final inning. The Miners fell behind early, allowing single runs in the first, second and fifth innings. David Fletcher led off the bottom with the first and scored on a Casey Munoz single later in the inning to give the Panners the 1-0 lead. Nolan Meadows walked and scored in the second to push the lead to 2-0, and Rick Reigner scored on a Payden Cawley-Lamb hit in the fifth to extend Alaska’s lead to 3-0.

Mat-Su finally got on the board in the seventh. Christin Stewart led off the inning with a double, and scored on a LaFace single to cut Alaska’s lead to 3-1.

LaFace came up big again in the ninth.

Stewart and Gio Brusa collected back-to-back singles to put two runners on for the Miners with two outs. LaFace followed with a double to clear the bases, and later scored on a Ben Wylly single.

University of Tennessee standout A.J. Simcox capped his stellar season, going 3 for 3 in the win. Simcox won the league’s batting title, finishing the season with a .356 average. Simcox also finished with the league lead in hits (48) and runs (27).

Stewart, another University of Tennessee product, added two hits and two runs in the win. He hit his league-leading 14th double.

Stewart finished second in the race for the ABL batting title with a .336 batting average. Stewart also finished the season with the league lead in home runs (five) and RBI (31).

Mat-Su went into its season-ending four-game road trip in Fairbanks with a share of first place in the ABL. Both Alaska and Mat-Su started the series with identical 19-12 records, but the Panners finished 3-1 in the series.

Alaska scored a big 9-2 win over the Miners on Thursday and swept a doubleheader on Friday.

Although the Miners fell short of winning the ABL title, Mat-Su still has a shot at another championship. The Miners are among five teams that will compete in the ABL postseason tournament, which starts Monday at Mulachy Stadium in Anchorage.

Mat-Su opens round-robin play Monday at 6 p.m. against the Anchorage Bucs. The Miners meet the Pilots Tuesday at 6 p.m. and the Panners Wednesday at 9 p.m.

Mat-Su caps round-robin play Thursday against Chugiak at Loretta Field in Chugiak.

The top two teams in round-robin play will meet in a best-of-3 series, which starts Aug. 3 in Anchorage.

Contact Jeremiah Bartz at 352-2273 or sports@frontiersman.com.