OUT OF TIME

PALMER — The Colony Knights ran out of time. But it might have been the extra time at the plate that earned West Anchorage a victory.

In a game shortened due by a two-hour time limit, West used four runs in the bottom of the fifth to post a 9-8 come-from-behind, six-inning victory over the Knights during the ASAA/First National Bank State Baseball Championships fourth-place game Saturday at Hermon Brothers Field.

The Knights did lose an inning, but Colony head coach Jamie Mayo felt a few uncharacteristic mistakes is what cost the Knights the game.

“You can’t give a team extra outs,” Mayo said after he watched his team commit four errors in the loss. “You give a team extra time at the plate and they’re going to take advantage of it most of the time. You give a good team extra at-bats and they’re going to put a bunch of numbers on the board. And that’s what happened.”

Colony committed eight errors and surrendered seven unearned runs against Lathrop in the consolation semifinals on Friday, but managed to escape with a 9-7 extra innings win in the consolation semifinals. Passed balls and errors also plagued what typically is a sound defensive Colony team during the first round on Thursday. Mayo was a bit beleaguered by his team’s atypical struggles on defense.

“This whole tournament we were pretty uncharacteristic,” Mayo said. “We haven’t made the errors all year that we made in this tournament — more errors that I would have imagined. This is a better team than that.”

Colony built leads of at least three runs twice before the West comeback. In the top of the third, Colony senior Mike Wagner tripled to deep left center field and drove in two runs to give the Knights the 3-1 lead. Wagner soon scored on Damon Hammer’s sacrifice fly to right to give the Knights a 4-1 advantage.

West scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the inning to cut Colony’s lead to 4-3, but another Colony triple highlighted the Knights’ four-run fourth.

Senior JD Mayo tripled to deep right center field to score sophomore Aaron Butcher. Hammer, Wagner and senior Colter Peterson also posted run-scoring singles in the inning.

“I think we hit the ball well,” Jamie Mayo said. “If you put eight runs on the board and you have guys on in every inning, you’re doing something right.”

Wagner, who was Colony’s recipient of the player of the game award, led the Knights at the plate, going 2-for-4 with a run scored and three RBI. Peterson finished 2-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI. JD Mayo was 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run. Butcher was 2-for-2 and reached based three times.

Mayo said the Knights’ knock offensively was their work in situational hitting.

“There were a couple of situations where we just didn’t execute,” Mayo said.

West took the lead in the fifth with four runs, two unearned. Junior Adam Manzer — who led the Eagles with three hits, two runs and two RBI — drove in the game-tying and go-ahead runs with a two-out triple to deep center field.

Eagles senior Dan Olsen reached on an error to start the rally and scored. Senior Blake Mendenhall legged out an infield single and scored. Alberto Valerio and Connor Cleary scored on the Manzer triple.

Colony finished sixth in the tournament for the second straight year. The Knights, the three-time Southcentral Conference champions, were third in 2008.

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