Valley squads to meet in final

SOLDOTNA — The Soldotna Stars team could not come back from an early two-run deficit in the top of the third inning Thursday at Coral Seymour Memorial Park as Wasilla advanced to the Southcentral Conference championship game with a 4-1 win over the Stars.

Wasilla senior right fielder Chris Capo’s two-run, two-out single put the Warriors on top 2-0 in the top of the third. From there, the Warriors cruised behind sophomore ace Bryce Borngraeber’s four-hit, one-run complete game.

“He’s been doing it all year. I had total confidence in him and he came through like he normally does,” Wasilla head coach Jason Terryberry said. “He pitched great.”

Soldotna’s run came in the bottom of the fourth when Jarrett Urban crossed home on a ground out by junior Gavin Larson. That would be the only run for Soldotna.

Borngraeber recorded 10 strikeouts while Soldotna’s Max Hegge gave up three earned runs and one unearned run on four hits in his five innings of work. Hegge also gave up three walks. Max Conradi pitched two scoreless innings of relief for SoHi.

Stars coach Roger Phillips said the lack of offense hurt SoHi’s chances.

“We had far too many strikeouts and far too many strikeouts looking,” he said.

With the loss, the Stars will play the winner of Kodiak and Palmer at 3 p.m., today at the Kenai Little League fields.

Phillips said moving forward his players will have to stop worrying about parts of the game that are out of their control. Soldotna senior third baseman Tyler Marcuson was thrown out in the bottom of the first inning for arguing with the home-plate umpire after a called strike three.

“One thing you have to do is stop worrying about the calls the blue makes and worry about what you can control,” he said. “You just have to take care of business, do your job and play situational baseball.”

In the top of the fifth inning, Wasilla put up two runs. Freshman Blake Carricaburu scored on an error and sophomore Kyle Simmons scored on a sacrifice fly to put the score 4-1 in the Warriors’ favor.

Borngraeber said he felt good on the mound the whole game.

“I felt pretty good. My arm usually hurts on six to eight days rest, but today my arm felt good,” he said. “Every now and then my two-seam wasn’t in the spot. It was high, but I got it down.”

The Warriors’ victory Thursday gives them a berth in the championship game Friday at 7 p.m. at Oiler Park. The key to victory, Terryberry said is to keep doing what they did Thursday against SoHi.

Wasilla opened tourney play with an 11-1 win over the Homer Mariners in the first round. Josh Grissom pitched a complete game and didn’t allow an earned run.