Playoff games rained out, Miners advance to championship series

PALMER — The Mat-Su Miners knew their 4-1 postseason victory over the Anchorage Bucs Thursday night was big. Friday morning, the Miners figured out just how big it was. As it turns out, thanks to a little help from some poor weather, it’s enough to vault the Miners into the Alaska Baseball League Top of the World Series championship.

Friday morning, the Miners announced the cancelation of Friday’s scheduled first-round playoff games. Overnight rain in the Palmer area made Hermon Brothers unplayable, according to a release issued by the team, and based on Mat-Su’s three-run win over the Bucs Thursday, the Miners advance to the Top of the World Series.

Similar circumstances impacted the other first-round series in the ABL postseason. The second-seeded Peninsula Oilers were set to host the third-seed Anchorage Glacier Pilots Thursday night in Kenai. That game was washed away by wet weather, and league officials opted to schedule a single game Friday, with the winner moving on to the championship series.

Peninsula is slated to host the Pilots today at 3 p.m.

Now, top-seed Mat-Su will host either Peninsula or the Pilots in a best-of-3 championship set, which is scheduled to start Saturday at 6 p.m. at Hermon Brothers. Game 2 is scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m., with a third game, if necessary, slated to start 40 minutes after the conclusion of Game 2.

Strong start, long balls lead Miners

In their regular season finale Wednesday night, the Mat-Su Miners took Hermon Brothers Field as temperatures hovered in the 70s.

As Mat-Su opened postseason play less than 24 hours later, it was a far different scene at the Palmer ballpark. The temperature dipped into the low 50s, and rain turned from a trickle to a pour.

But the Miners didn’t let a little wet weather slow them down. Angelo Armenta and Levi Jordan each hit solo home runs, and starting pitcher Connor Higgins worked his way into the seventh inning to help the Miners score a 4-1 win over the Anchorage Bucs during the opening day of the first round of the Alaska Baseball League playoffs.

“It’s been pretty cloudy the last couple weeks. You’ve got to expect anything,” Armenta said after the win.

Armenta used his third-inning blast to help the Miners grab an early lead in the game and the series.

“I got it pretty good. I thought it had a good chance,” Armenta said of the home run, his second in 26 games with the Miners.

Armenta finished with a team-high three hits in the win.

“He’s a veteran guy. It really showed tonight,” Mat-Su head coach Ben Taylor said of Armenta, a University of Southern California product.

The Miners used three straight hits to plate a pair of runs in the fourth. Jordan led off the inning with a single, and Garrison Schwartz and Michael Donadio followed with consecutive doubles. Schwartz drove in Jordan, and Donadio sent Schwartz home.

Jordan added a solo blast in the fifth.

“We came out and swung the bat really well. It was a good day for us,” Taylor said.

Higgins pitched 6 1/3 innings for the Miners, scattering five hits and no earned runs. Of the 97 pitches the 6-foot-5 lefty threw, 64 were for strikes.

“He was fantastic,” Taylor said. “He gave us (6 1/3) really strong innings, competed hard in the zone, made some big pitches for us.”

Mick Vorhof and Jordan Floyd combined for 2 2/3 scoreless innings, with Floyd earning the save.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.