Miners fall in Anchorage

PALMER — The Mat-Su Miners raced to the top of the Alaska Baseball League standings with a seven-game winning streak last week. But a three-game slide has knocked the defending champions out of first.

The Anchorage Bucs used a 6-3 win Monday night at Mulcahy Stadium in Anchorage to hand the Miners their third straight defeat.

Mat-Su jumped to an early 1-0 lead, but Anchorage erupted for five runs in the sixth.

Tanner Carlson drove in Aaron Walters in the second to give Mat-Su the 1-0 lead. Walters and Ricky Martinez added an RBI each in the eighth.

Walters led Mat-Su at the plate, finishing 3 for 4 with a run scored and an RBI. Erik Webb added two hits.

Mat-Su also suffered a pair of losses during a summer solstice doubleheader against the Anchorage Glacier Pilots Saturday night in Anchorage.

Anchorage edged Mat-Su 3-2 in the nightcap Saturday. The Pilots scored the go-ahead run in the sixth inning of the game that started at 10:37 p.m. Mat-Su’s Justin Kirby scored on a Kody Huff single in the fifth to tie the game at 2. Kirby also drove in a run in the first. Huff and Kirby finished with two hits each.

Earlier in the evening, Anchorage beat Mat-Su 5-2. The Miners led 2-1 in the third, but Anchorage scored four unanswered runs in the win. Erik Webb and Matt Palmer, a former Colony High standout, drove in runs for the Miners.

The Miners return home to play the Bucs in a two-game series that starts Friday at 7 p.m. at Hermon Brothers Field in Palmer.

Contact the Frontiersman at sports@frontiersman.com.