Road Warriors rally for mercy rule win

WASILLA — It didn’t take long for the Alaska Road Warriors to find themselves down. But then the bats came alive.

Alaska erased an early 6-0 deficit and rallied to a 17-7 win over Bartlett at McManus Field on Wednesday.

“Everybody was hitting,” Alaska skipper Steve Mossburgh said. “All of them just hit the ball tremendously.”

The Road Warriors scored 10 of their runs in the bottom of the fourth, which helped Alaska score its first win of the season and improve to 1-1 overall. Patrick Fitzgerald helped fuel the comeback with a bases-clearing triple.

David Newman drove in the final run to seal the five-inning mercy rule win.

Isaac Courson earned the win in relief for the Road Warriors.

Tim Rockey and John Stormont were among the Road Warriors with multiple hits.

Alaska opened the season with a 9-5 loss to Eagle River earlier in the week. The Road Warriors finished with 15 hits in the loss.

“It’s not like we didn’t hit the ball, we just couldn’t score any runs,” Mossburgh said.

Alaska stranded a runner on third base four times in the loss.

The Road Warriors return home to McManus Field to host a doubleheader against West Anchorage Saturday at 12:30 p.m.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/matsu_sports.