By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
With the state tournament only weeks away, Sitka’s baseball team split a series against Thunder Mountain 2-1 this weekend at home.
Sitka dominated in the first two games with lopsided shutouts, but Thunder Mountain bounced back with a 12-6 win over the Wolves in the final game of the series Saturday afternoon.
Sitka started the series with a bang on Friday, scoring 7 runs on only three hits in the first inning of the first game, and going on to win 19-0. The story was the same on Saturday, with Sitka winning 14-0.
But the Wolves’ confidence got the better of them in the final game as the Falcons rallied and inflicted a 12-6 loss on the home team on the turf at Moller Field.
In game one, Sitka senior Dylan Marx hit a single, a double, a triple and a home run, a rare achievement in baseball, known as hitting for the cycle.
Sitka senior Dylan Marx hits an in-the-park home run against Thunder Mountain at Moller Field, Friday. Sitka won 19-0, while Marx hit for the cycle, scoring a single, a double, a triple and a homer all in that game. (Sentinel photo)
Marx hit his homer in the top of the third, and capped it with a triple in the fourth. After his home run, Marx knew hitting for the cycle was possible if things went his way.
“Right now I’m so full of adrenaline it’s kind of hard to describe. It feels awesome, though. And to come out and do it in a huge win, it’s awesome,” he said after the game.
Wolves coach Ken Carley said that as far as he is aware no Sitka High player has hit for the cycle before.
At the close of the third inning Sitka led 19-0, and a mercy rule kicked in, though the teams continued play informally through intermittent rain for another two innings, in which Thunder Mountain managed 2 runs and Sitka scored 6.
Sitka’s bats were alive in the first two games of the series, and the upperclassmen weren’t the only ones making contact with the ball. Freshman Brett Ross hit all four times he went up to bat Friday, scoring a number of runs in the process. By game’s end, he was a home run away from hitting for the cycle. He credited the win on his team’s cohesion.
“That was a crazy game. The amount of runs we had and the fact it was delayed by so long because the flight didn’t get in and how well we batted throughout… This was no one-man job, it was everybody swinging,” Ross said.
The young player has enjoyed his time on the squad this season.
“I love the atmosphere. It slows down, but at the same time if you’re playing it, there’s so much to think about. It goes by pretty fast.”
Both Ross and Marx had high praise for their pitcher, sophomore Bryce Campagno Calhoun, who kept the Falcons struggling to get runners on base at all.
“I knew that they were good at hitting,” Calhoun said after the game. “And I just tried to go off speed and just keep them off balance.”
But like his teammates, he was quick to highlight the collective effort that produced the win.
“It was a big group effort. And we had great hitting, we had great defense and everything went well,” he said.
Friday’s game was a look at the Wolves at their finest, coach Carley said, as each piece of the puzzle fell into place.
“They’re doing exactly what I asked them to be - patient. They weren’t supposed to swing until they had a strike. They all did that, and it worked out for us. Everyone on the team was great (Friday)… Our defense was on point and our hitting was great. And (Thunder Mountain) had quite a few errors. That’s what started it; errors and walks are what made that happen.”
Sitka followed up Friday’s game with a 14-0 victory early Saturday 14-0, but the home team’s confidence boomeranged that afternoon, when the Falcons surged to a 12-6 triumph over Sitka in the final game of the series.
The confidence established by the earlier games in the series proved to be excessive, the Wolves’ coach said afterward.
“They were ready to play ball and we weren’t,” Carley said. “I’m pretty sure our guys went into that game thinking we were going to walk all over them, and didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. Kudos to Thunder Mountain for showing up to play after the first two games. They always kept their heads up and minds in the game. It’s a loss for us, but a great learning experience for our guys. Hopefully, we all learned something from that game.”
This coming weekend, Sitka plays the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears at home.
The state tournament will be played in Sitka in the first week of June.
“I feel like we’re one of the top teams in the state,” said Sitka’ star hitter Dylan Marx after Friday’s game. “I’m just really excited for this team this year. It’s my last year and I really want to take it home for us.”
