The Juneau Post 25 baseball team’s win total reached double digits Tuesday.
A trio of road wins over Bartlett Post 29 and Wasilla Post 35 pushed the team’s record to 10-1 overall and 6-1 in league play.
Juneau pulls in to the Kosinski Field Complex in Anchorage for a doubleheader against South Post 4 at 3 and 6 p.m. today. As of this morning, each team has just a single conference loss on the season. The last game the two played one another — July 29, 2017, in the state title game — Juneau won 6-5.
“They have a bone to pick with us,” Juneau manager Joe Tompkins said in a phone interview Wednesday morning. “They had a good chance of taking state last year.”
Juneau started the week with a 12-0 win over Bartlett at Bartlett High School. Post 25 then played a doubleheader against Wasilla on Tuesday, holding their opponent to just three runs over 14 innings, winning 11-0 and 4-3.
“We just had solid defense, both games, and they just held their heads high and stuck with it,” Tompkins said.
In the first game, Michael Cesar’s seventh-inning grand slam dealt one last blow to a Wasilla club held to just four hits.
Wasilla turned things around in the second game and scored two runs in the first inning.
Bobby Cox scored the team’s only run through five innings. But Juneau rallied for three runs in the sixth, as Cesar tripled, Kasey Watts doubled and Wasilla committed a costly error that allowed Watts to score the go-ahead run.
Zeb Storie pitched in relief in the seventh and initiated a double play for the first two outs before watching his catcher (Cesar) end the game by gunning Kendell Ruta out at first base. The first baseman, Watts, had to dive to catch the ball before tagging out the potential go-ahead run.
Tompkins didn’t think the play would result in an error.
“It’s never in the back of my mind because these guys have been playing together for years, they trust each other,” Tompkins said. “To me, it was pretty spectacular play.”
After Thursday, when Juneau takes on Bartlett once more, the team will be exactly midway through the 28-game regular season.
The American Legion Alaska State Tournament is July 28-31 at Mulcahy Stadium in Anchorage.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com. Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports.
