Road Warriors extend win streak

WASILLA — The pursuit of the perfect game is the aspiration of any pitcher at any level of baseball. A perfect season, however, is something even more rare for an entire team. It’s also a pursuit that’s become the focus of a seasoned Alaska Road Warriors American Legion team that is, through about a third of its season, still perfect.

A come-from-behind 7-4 win over Eagle River on Thursday was followed by a 12-2 mercy-rule-shortened drubbing of West Anchorage Saturday as the Road Warriors improved to 6-0 on the season.

“These guys, a lot of them have played together for a few years for me and they know each other well,” said head coach Myrl Thompson after Saturday’s win. “They’re hitting good, fielding good. I really don’t have any complaints.”

In fact, the coach said that the challenge is to keep the Road Warriors focused. A fast start is great, but keeping that momentum and solid play through the state tournament is the goal.

So far, the team has answered every challenge. On Thursday, that came quickly against Eagle River, which took an early 3-0 lead on the Warriors after two innings. The Road Warriors didn’t let that lead stand long, however, scoring four in the top of the third, then adding another two in the fifth and a last run in the seventh to close out the game.

On Saturday, the Valley squad never game West a chance. The Road Warriors led 5-0 after the first inning, 7-0 after two and 12-0 after three innings of play. West managed a single run in both the fourth and fifth innings, but it wasn’t enough to close the gap, and with a 10-run lead after five innings, the game was called.

“They were a little wild on the mound and we took advantage of some walks and a few timely errors,” Thompson said, pointing out that the Warriors’ 12 runs came off just eight hits.

With more than enough run support, Jacob Butcher was stellar on the mound as well Saturday, the coach said. He pitched all five innings throwing just 59 pitches, with 49 strikes. He struck out 8 batters and didn’t walk any.

“He was short-order today,” the coach said. “He gave up a few hits, but that’s because he was throwing everything in the strike zone.”

Butcher also helped himself at the plate, hitting 3-for-3 with 3 RBI.

Butcher is part of middle of a Road Warriors lineup that has been impossible for opposing pitchers to figure out so far, Thompson said. He’s joined by Russ Ruta, Jonathan Boyer, Ben Ross and Morgan McJimsey batting 2 through 6. And while Saturday was Butcher’s turn to shine, Thursday belonged to Ross.

Against Eagle River, Ross batted 2-for-3 with a triple and scored three runs.

“He had a real good game there,” Thompson said. “The middle of the lineup is pretty strong. It’s hard to get through there without giving up a few hits.”

With an experienced team, Thompson said the challenge now is to maintain focus to keep riding the hot streak.

“That’s the big question,” he said. “It’s been fairly easy so far. When you have to go wire-to-wire, though, it’s hard to stay focused the whole time. But so far, it hasn’t been a challenge. But it’s a long season and we’re only a third of the way through it. There are some really good teams around the state this year.”

The pursuit of perfection continues today with the Road Warriors at Chad Bax Field in Anchorage to play South. First pitch is at 1 p.m.

Contact Greg Johnson at 352-2269 or greg.johnson@frontiersman.com.