Miners Take Down Glacier Pilots in Rollicking 6-2 Win

The seats were packed at Hermon Brothers Field for a Friday night rematch between last year's two Top of the World Series Championship contenders, and no Miners fans left unsatisfied. Mat-Su's pitching remained dominant, while the offense got a massive spark and powered the Miners to a feel-good come-from-behind win.

Mat-Su wasted little time getting on the board. In the bottom of the first, a two-out Kyle McCausland single gave the Miners a baserunner, and a trio of Anchorage throwing errors (two on the same grounder off the bat of Christian Perez) gave the Massachusetts native a wild ride home.

The two starters, Ma-Su's Noah Kendrick and Anchorage's Braden Roesch, dueled through the first four innings with relatively similar lines. Roesch surrendered four Miners hits to Kendrick's one, along with an unearned run, but was solid in the early going. The wheels began to come off for Anchorage when the bullpen got involved.

In the fifth, Jace Russell took over for Roesch and eerily mimicked the latter's first inning, getting two quick outs before loading the bases. Like Roesch, he too was able to escape, coaxing left fielder Ryker Schow's second inning-ending bases-loaded flyout to end the frame.

You might have noticed, however, that Anchorage's offense hasn't gotten a mention yet. That is because the bottom halves of Friday's game were less Mat-Su pitching to Anchorage and more Mat-Su pitching to Luke Heefner and brushing by the rest. The Glacier Pilots' designated hitter went 3-4 with a double, which consummated the entirety of Anchorage's hits in the game.

Still, disaster struck for Mat-Su in the seventh. Kendrick walked leadoff man Chase Knight, which ended the Sam Houston product's day after six nearly flawless innings. His replacement, Luke Smith (1-0), immediately advanced him to second on a wild pitch, before allowed Heefner's second hit to put runners on the corners with none out. Up to that point, the jam was partially Smith's doing, but what happened next was beyond his control. Mat-Su shortstop Dom Patrizi bobbled a Dylan Marx grounder that let Knight score and Marx reach base, before first baseman Chase Wilcox mishandled a throw on an ensuing grounder to plate another Pilot.

From there, however, Smith and the Miners buckled down, cutting down Marx at home on a fielder's choice and doubling off the remaining two runners to escape the inning with just a one-run deficit. In the seventh, the Incarnate Word Cardinal struck out all three batters he saw. That pitching performance seemingly galvanized the Miners' bats. Payton Allen (1-1), on in relief of Russell, immediately felt the long-dormant wrath of Mat-Su's once league-best scoring attack, allowing three straight singles to start the bottom of the seventh. The third, an RBI hit for Brandyn Durand, was cited by head coach Ty LeBrun after the game as the moment he and his team felt the momentum finally start to shift.

Even though that hit only tied the game, the massive Palmer crowd all seemed to feel it too. On the next play, Chase Wilcox laid down a bunt that Pilots catcher Evan Chadwick chucked nearly six feet over the head of his first baseman. Allen and the Anchorage infield could only watch as the ball rolled all the way to the right edge of foul territory and scored two runs, with Wilcox ending up at third in perhaps the first bases-clearing error-aided bunt triple in ABL history. Two outs later, Ryan Richard plated Wilcox with an RBI single of his own.

The closing innings further proved the theory that the energy at Herman Brothers Field had shifted. On the defensive side, Ashton Johnson and Drew Koenen combined for five more strikeouts to bring the game total to a season-high 12 and extend the team's streak of innings with allowing an earned run to a staggering 29. The Miners also tacked on one more run in their final offensive frame, with Dom Patrizi and Christian Perez each smacking doubles that added the sixth and final round of cheers reverberating around the ballpark in celebration of the team from the first week of the season finally reemerging.

The Miners don't play on Saturday, but they will take part in the annual Miners Pancake Breakfast in downtown Palmer that morning.

On Sunday, Mat-Su heads to Chugiak for a rematch against the Chinooks squad that defeated them 1-0 on Wednesday. To watch the action, head down to Lee Jordan Field or tune in on the Miners' YouTube channel!

Charlie Fellows, 2024 Broadcaster
Mat-Su Miners