Prep baseball: Knights clinch conference crown

SOLDOTNA — Colony clinched an abbreviated Southcentral Conference regular season title with an 8-3 win over Soldotna Friday in Soldotna.

Shortstop Josh Boring went 3-for-5 with a home run, 2 RBI and three runs scored, while senior pitcher Chris Breck scattered five hits over six innings to pick up the win.

The Knights used a five-run second inning to hand Soldotna their first loss of the season. Colony’s big inning was keyed by a two-out, bases-loaded single by Stephen Sinett that scored two runs and paved the way for three more in the inning.

“I’m really pleased with the way the kids played,” Colony coach Jamie Mayo said.

Soldotna got a home run from third baseman Larson Kohler, but the Stars hurt themselves on the base paths, getting caught stealing four times in the game.

Breck wasn’t overpowering in the win, but did enough to keep the Knights in front, pitching into the seventh inning before giving way to Colter Peterson, who struck out two batters in the final inning to preserve a trip to this year’s state tournament, which begins June 5 in Fairbanks.

Boring was the star offensively for the Knights. In addition to his leadoff homer to start the sixth, the sophomore also bunted for a base hit and stole two bases.

“He’s a very, very good player,” Mayo said.

Soldotna got one run in the second to cut the lead to 5-1.

Colony then went up 6-1 in the fourth after Boring bunted, stole two bases and came home on a single by Cory Cucullu.

SoHi again scored a lone run in the bottom of the fourth on Elson’s line-drive home run over the left field fence.

Boring answered Elson’s drive with a monster shot to right field in the sixth, and pinch hitter Mike Wagner capped the scoring when he singled off the left field fence, stole second and came around on back-to-back throwing errors by the Stars.

Soldotna managed to load the bases against Peterson, but the hard-throwing right-hander escaped the game without giving up a run.

Following the game, Mayo called the five-game conference schedule “ridiculous.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Mayo said of the conference season, which was shortened before this season to only count one game against the other five teams in the conference. Last year, teams played a 10-game conference schedule.

Mayo’s beef with the short season is that teams don’t play enough meaningful games against one another. Though he’s happy his squad won the conference, he said he doesn’t relish the prospect of finishing out the regular season with a slate of games against teams with nothing to play for.

“We’ve got enough young guys on our team that I’m worried will lose focus,” he said.

The Knights and Stars will both advance to the state tournament, even though Colony still has four regular season games left to play — none of which will count in the standings.

“That’s embarrassing,” Mayo said.

Mayo would like to see Mat-Su teams — Palmer, Wasilla and Colony — play at least two conference games against each other, as well as at least one conference game against Soldotna, Kodiak and Homer.

Mayo said he’s happy his team will be heading to state, and was impressed with the team’s ability to handle Soldotna, a team that had been dominating Southcentral Conference foes.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we won and I’m real proud of these kids,” he said.

But he’d like to see more games count in order to make for a more interesting and meaningful season.

“The legitimacy of winning this conference is not what it should be,” he said.

In the second game of the doubleheader, Soldotna came back with a 9-8 victory over Colony.

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2265 or matt.tunseth@frontiersman.com