By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
With only a narrow lead in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Sitka Junior All Stars softball team held the line and secured a win against Ketchikan at Moller Field Thursday in the first game of a series.
Sitka won 10-9 in a nail-biter that kept both teams on their toes into the final moments. The two teams are vying for the district title. Juneau didn’t field a team this year.
Ketchikan’s All Stars picked up an early lead with 2 runs in the bottom of the first inning, but Sitka surged in the third, scoring 5 runs.
Sitka All Stars player Lei’a Daly lets a low pitch fly during the fourth inning against the Ketchikan All Stars team, Thursday at Moller Field. Sitka earned a tight win 10-9 in the series opener. The teams play again today. (Sentinel photo)
After two innings without scoring, a home run by Allyson Mayville, 14, helped break the deadlock in the third. She slammed the ball deep into right field, and a fielding error there gave her just enough time to rush around the diamond.
“The hit, if I’m going to be honest, probably shouldn’t have been a home run,” Mayville told the Sentinel after the game. “I’m very glad it was, but it was an error on the right fielder. And I saw the ball, I watched it, and then she missed the ball and I knew it. I was rounding second going into third… and I was so nervous. I was about to slide into home. And the catcher was jumping up and I thought she had the ball. I was so scared.”
The rising high school freshman crossed home plate safely and batted in another runner in the process.
Sitka’s All Stars kept the momentum up in the fourth, scoring 3 runs, with 2 more following in the fifth. In the fourth, Sitka catcher Kaelynn Balovich, also 14, hit a double run batted in that gave her team some additional breathing room over the slumping Ketchikan squad. Balovich is a rising high school sophomore.
“I had two strikes on me so I was scared… (but) I was pretty happy about that. It got us back in the game” Balovich recalled.
But in the bottom of the fifth, Ketchikan’s team shifted into high gear and scored 2 runs, followed by 5 more in the sixth. Sitka’s 8-run lead was all but gone by the end of the fifth, but the team stood firm.
Sitka went into the final inning leading by only a single run.
In the sixth and seventh innings, only four Sitka players made it up to bat before the team accumulated three outs, giving Ketchikan a chance to tie the game or claim a last-minute lead.
With Alina Lebahn, 14, on the mound in the bottom of the seventh, Sitka’s defense held fast, even as Ketchikan’s offense made a final effort. In the final moments of the game, bases were loaded with Ketchikan runners, but the away-team couldn’t break through.
Lebahn recalled the stress of pitching in the closing inning.
“It was really hard for me… I had to figure out how I could fix my pitching to match with the game style, I guess, because it wasn’t perfect for me,” Lebahn said. “But then I had to adjust and when I finally adjusted it kind of clicked and it was a lot easier.”
With two outs already on the board, a Ketchikan batter made a solid hit but the ball was caught, ending the game in Sitka’s favor.
“It was so relieving; honestly, it felt so good… We really did pull it together at the end,” Lebahn said.
Mayville, from her perspective on third base, highlighted the need to stay composed and play hard to the end.
“Really, it’s a mental game,” she said. “You have to go into that inning thinking you’re going to win… You can’t be like, ‘Oh man, I didn’t score last inning.’ You just have to pick yourself up, pick your team up.”
In hindsight, Sitka Junior Softball All Stars coach Teal West said she was confident her team would be able to pull through in the seventh.
“We’ve practiced for that scenario so many times that there was no way we were going to fail. So I was confident going into it that they could pull it off because they want the win,” West said.
She stressed the importance of addressing the game one play at a time.
“One pitch, one play, one out at a time, so we’re never thinking about the past. We’re only thinking about what we’re doing right now.”
Sitka and Ketchikan play again today at 5:30 p.m. at Moller Field, with more games Saturday at noon and 5 p.m. If the series is tied by then, an if-game is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday.
Sitka’s All Stars will need to play hard and remain level headed to clinch victories in the upcoming games, Mayville said.
“We can’t go in cocky just because we won the first game. It was a really close game… We just have to play our hardest,” she said.
