Road Warriors fall short in bid for tourney title

WASILLA — The Alaska Road Warriors’ quest for a second straight championship at the Todd Ryan Memorial tournament was stymied by a troublesome fifth inning Sunday.

The Dimond Lynx benefited from a six-run fifth to come from behind against the Road Warriors and claim the title 8-5 at McManus Fields. The Road Warriors notched a 6-3 victory Saturday night over West to set up the showdown with Dimond Sunday in the round-robin format tournament.

The Road Warriors quickly got to Dimond pitcher Colton Lauwers in the first inning. Lauwers, known more for his prowess on the hardwood as the state’s reigning high school basketball player of the year, quickly loaded the bases in the bottom of the first. Road Warrior pitcher Rhowe Stefanski then drew a walk which forced in the Road Warriors first run. Keith Christopher followed with a hit to the Lynx shortstop, who airmailed the ball over the head of the second baseman to score two more runs. Those three runs were all the Road Warrior’s would muster until the sixth. Alaska head coach Steve Mossburgh said his team’s bats fell silent in the middle innings.

“Overall, our bats were a little weak tonight,” Mossburgh said. “For some reason we don’t seem to hit really well in the second, third and fourth innings.”

The Road Warriors made up for middle inning doldrums with a solid pitching performance by Stefanski. Stefanski limited the Dimond lineup to one run through the first four innings of the game.

“I thought he threw that ball pretty well tonight,” Mossburgh said. Aiding the pitching performance was a stingy defense that turned four double plays, including a strikeout-throw out double play where catcher Christopher nailed the Dimond runner attempting to swipe second after a Stefanski punch out.

“The defense played excellent tonight,” Mossburgh said. “They made a couple errors there, but overall I was proud of their effort.”

Two errors in the fifth inning, along with a combination of “lucky” singles, were a catalyst to Dimond’s six-run fifth inning that knocked Stefanski out of the game, Mossburgh said.

“He had that one inning there (the fifth), couple of bloopers, couple of shots, some bad luck,” Mossburgh said. “It happens.”

The Road Warriors managed to add two runs in the six inning off of Lauwers, but the tall right-hander refused to let the home team any closer.

“He (Lauwers) settled in there and threw a pretty good game,” Mossburgh said. “He was throwing pretty hard.”

Lauwers pitched a complete game, giving up the five runs, but with only one earned.

The Lynx went on to add one more run in the top of the seventh inning to close out the scoring at 8-5.

Although Alaska missed out on a chance at repeating as tournament champs, The Road Warriors, who finished the tournament at 2-2, are starting to come around said Mossburgh.

“If we play defense like we did today and our pitching and hitting start to come around we’ll be right there. We have our days,” he said as he mentioned that he isn’t always sure about what type of performance he’ll see from the team. “But the team we had today is the team that plays really well. I’m very pleased with our effort tonight.”