Miners retake first place

by Lauren Petri

July 26th

The Mat Su Miners’ starter, Brandon Downer, pitched a complete game, striking out four, walking one, and allowing two runs, one earned, on six hits. Downer threw 102 pitches, only 18 of them for balls. The Anchorage Glacier Pilots helped him out by swinging at a lot of first pitches and popping or grounding out. For the Pilots, Kan Taguchi doubled and scored on a groundout by Blake Jackson in the first inning. In the eighth, Nathan Barraza scored on an error by Nolan Tucker. The big spot for the Miners came in the fifth inning when Maddox Haley, who recently came back from injury, hit a no-doubt three-run homerun to also score Alex Vegara and Steven Lancia. Other notable stats for the Miners, Lancia, in his first game since Friday, went 2 for 4 with a double, two runs scored, and an RBI. Kaden Carpenter went 1 for 3 with an RBI triple and a run scored. After flip-flopping first-place with the Pilots and Anchorage Bucs, the Miners head to Mulcahy to face the Bucs and the Pilots get the day off.

Final Score: Mat-Su Miners 8, Anchorage Glacier Pilots 2