By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
Arriving in Anchorage for the state baseball tournament last week, the Sitka High players knew they faced long odds in competition with the best teams in the state.
After wins over Eagle River and Chugiak, the Wolves advanced to Saturday’s championship game with South Anchorage High, where they pulled together in a hard-fought game to take second place in the tourney.
While Sitka’s regular season record this year was 9-8, South Anchorage’s win-loss record over two years was 43-0. The Wolverines beat Sitka 6-0 to secure their second consecutive state title.
Sitka’s Stephen Harmon, center, runs to the dugout after assisting in a double play to end the inning during the baseball state championship game against South Anchorage High School at Mulcahy Stadium in Anchorage on Saturday. Sitka lost the game and took second overall. (Emily Mesner/ADN)
Despite the challenging matchup in the season’s final game, Sitka’s Nik Calhoun said the test for the Wolves was to stay calm and play solid baseball.
“Since it’s the state championship game, you can’t really look at their team like, ‘Oh, they’re this big, bad team.’ You’ve got to go against them like just another team,” Calhoun told the Sentinel as he handed in his uniform Monday. “Got to keep doing what you’ve been doing to get there. You can’t really let that barrier stop you.”
Calhoun, a member of Sitka High’s Class of 2022, hopes to continue his baseball career in college in California.
South and Sitka last squared off in 2017, when Sitka won the championship game and the state title by a single run. But since then both teams have experienced a full turnover of their rosters.
Going into Saturday’s game, rising senior Dylan Marx was focused on reducing the errors that dogged Sitka through much of the season.
“I know that they’re a very good team,” he said of the Wolverines. “I’ve actually played with a lot of them in the past. So they’re kind of like my friends, but on the field I know they’re not my friends. So going into that game, just focus on hitting the ball, make sure I’m not making errors, my mind is right, fundamentals are right. Thinking about what he’s going to pitch me because in the last game (against Chugiak), I had like five hits or something. So they’re going to try to come up and pitch around me or some sliders, which they did.”
On the mound for Sitka in the decisive game was freshman Bryce Calhoun.
“I was really nervous going in there,” Calhoun said. “I didn’t expect to do as well as I did… I think my off speed helps, they struggled a little bit on hitting. I mean, they still got hits, but they weren’t solid hits and I had great defense behind me.”
Calhoun held the Wolverines at bay in the first two innings. South broke the gridlock in the bottom of the third and scored their first two runs. South slowly pulled ahead for the remainder of the game, but never scored more than two runs in any inning.
While South has been able to run away with games this season and last year, Nik Calhoun credited Bryce for keeping the powerhouse squad at arm’s length.
“Our pitching definitely was a big factor in that,” he said, “along with the amount of hits we had. That was really big.”
Marx also said Bryce’s pitching kept the game as close as it was.
“Bryce did an awesome job,” Marx said. “I think his speed and funkiness with his pitches – they’re not stray, they moved around (and) threw them off a little bit.”
Coach Kenny Carley said that against a team like South, opponents need to be in their best form.
“Everyone has to play their best,” Carley said. “Our starting pitcher did amazing, Bryce Calhoun, and we got a lot of guys on base. We just weren’t able to score. I think we left 10 or 12 on base,” Carley said.
“Once we figured out we can win, we never gave up. Even when we’re down against South, we kept trying every inning. We were getting guys on, we just couldn’t get them across,” he said.
Through the regular season, errors often nagged the Wolves, but they cleaned up their gameplay as the season came to a close in the regional and state tournaments, Carley noted.
“We had a great end of the season there. Won five out of six games… where no one thought we had a chance to even get to state, let alone get second at state… (Earlier) we had way too many errors. We hit all season, we just gave the runs right back with errors. I think we gave up 145 runs this year and only 60 were earned,” the coach recalled.
Sitka opened the state tournament Thursday with a nail-biter win against Eagle River High, 8-6, following that up Friday by downing Chugiak 12-3 to proceed to the championship game.
Carley praised his players’ willingness to hang tough.
“They just never gave up,” he said.
Playing in record-breaking heat that reached 77 degrees Saturday, the coach worked to keep his athletes cool and hydrated.
“Lots of ice, lots of Gatorade, lots of water. Remind them to drink it. Every time we came off the field. It’s one of those things you have to do or it gets a hold of you before you know it,” he said.
BY SEA, BY AIR
Before ever arriving in Anchorage, the team faced an obstacle that nearly kept them from departing Sitka.
A heavy fog canceled two flights to Anchorage, and forced them to travel to Juneau by Allen Marine catamaran to catch a plane to Anchorage. Alaska Airlines canceled a total of 11 flights during the week because of fog.
Nik Calhoun commented on the team’s travel misadventures.
“We got to the airport, we boarded the plane. And they’re like, ‘Oh, sorry, you guys need to get off the plane. It’s too foggy to take off.’ So we’re like, ‘Wow, that just changed a lot.’ And we get a text from Kenny saying, ‘Let everybody know to be at the airport at 4:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. We got a flight.’ And my dad wakes me up. He’s like, ‘Hey, the plane was canceled by fog.’ So we went back to sleep… and he woke us up at 8:30 a.m. And he’s like, ‘Hey, you guys need to take an Allen Marine boat to Juneau. So we did that and we were able to get to Anchorage,” Calhoun recalled.
Carley was grateful that Allen Marine was able to accommodate the team on short notice.
“We had three different flights canceled and we were down to our last bit of luck to get to Anchorage and my wife had an idea that maybe I should try Allen Marine,” the coach said. “I called a buddy that works there and an hour and a half hour later we were on the boat heading to Juneau... Luckily all the guys were already awake because we were up at four to go on that early flight.”
Nik Calhoun reminisced on his years playing baseball at Sitka High.
“Last time hanging out with the team,” he said. “The last day, we went to one of our Eagle River teammates’ house. And we had a barbecue and played games and stuff. It was pretty cool. Because besides baseball, that’s the stuff that you remember.”
He said the younger players deserve a lot of credit for this year’s success.
“This team is really special because, again, we come from a school of 320 kids,” he said. “We had the underclassmen step up, which is really cool, because in order for us to be successful, those underclassmen have to do their part.”
Bryce Calhoun is looking forward to next year.
“It was a really cool experience… just the crowd and everything. There was a lot more at stake and it was just really fun to just be there and play for a trophy… Looking forward to going to state again and hopefully winning this time,” the rising sophomore said.
“I’m just proud of the guys,” Coach Carley said. “They did a great job.”
