Wasilla slinger one-hits Palmer

WASILLA — Wasilla High School sophomore Hank Boyer is a simple man with a simple philosophy: throw strikes.

“I was able to pinpoint my corners and throw it wherever I wanted,” Boyer said, of the Monday night game against the Moose, a 6-0 home win for the Warriors at Wasilla Senior Field.

Boyer sat down the first 18 Palmer hitters before Elias Stratton’s seventh-inning single broke up his bid for a perfect game.

The Wasilla defense performed similarly, easily guarding their home field against the little contact made by Palmer. Stratton advanced to third base in the top half of the seventh inning, but never touched home plate, keeping the Wasilla shutout intact.

“Our game plan is to throw strikes, and that’s what he did,” said Wasilla head coach Jason Terryberry, of Boyer. “It (was) a perfect game except for that one hit. He makes the hitter beat him, and today nobody could do it.”

In general, Boyer’s fastballs run in on a right-handed hitter, making it tough to square up a pitch on the barrel of the bat. And Palmer has only one left-handed batter.

Palmer 12, Houston 0

PALMER — Palmer’s Cameron Jenson pitched five shutout innings on Wednesday as the Moose cruised to a 12-0 win over the Houston Hawks at Hermon Brothers Field.

Jenson issued his only free pass to Houston pitcher Reed Graham in the first inning. From then on, Jenson was efficient in retiring the Houston lineup, throwing 39 of his next 47 pitches for strikes. Jenson finished with one strikeout.

Wyatt Shults poked a ball over second base into center field to start the second inning for Palmer. Kegan Larson took one of his three walks in the game and followed Shults to the plate on a pair of steals and passed balls.

Graham then struck out the next two batters and got some help on a ground ball to Isaac Smoldon. Smoldon demonstrated his defensive juggling ability after a ball took a funny hop off the bat of Elias Stratton and Smoldon still managed to throw Stratton out at first, ending the inning.

In the next inning, Shults ran down a ball hit sharply off the bat of Ethan Giddings into center field. Shults dove to his left and caught the ball in flight to record the out.

But two pitches later, Graham got Houston going with a double over Shults’ head. He advanced to third on an error, but never scored. Morgan Buntin had a single, the only other Hawk hit.

Palmer kept hot bats into the home half of the third inning. Jarred Yanez smashed an RBI double into left field. Larson was walked and scored right behind him. Jacob Copeland scored on an Austin Reeder RBI single.

“Being patient is huge. We did have some really good hits tonight,” said Palmer head coach Dave Combs.

Yanez added an RBI single in the fourth inning. Stratton, Palmer’s senior catcher, hit a deep line drive to left field for a three-RBI triple off Houston lefty Eli Lovelace.

Jenson caught two fly balls and cruised through the fifth inning, needing only 57 pitches to finish the game. Jenson allowed just four base runners.

“He was extremely efficient,” Combs said.