Propelled by strong pitching that kept the Crimson Bears from scoring runs – or even getting on base much of the time – Sitka High swept to victory in a three-game baseball series against Juneau-Douglas, Friday and Saturday in Juneau.
Sitka led off with a 5-1 win against the Bears as senior Bryce Compagno-Calhoun struck out batter after batter and gave up only a handful of hits, last Friday. Getting back onto the diamond Saturday, Sitka blanked Juneau 4-0, this time with another senior, Caleb Calhoun, throwing more than a dozen strikeouts to keep Juneau shut down. In the third game, Sitka won 4-1, helped defensively by pitcher Levi Hodges, also a senior.
“Overall, I think that we did a pretty good job playing together as a team and minimizing errors, and everybody was doing their part,” Hodges told the Sentinel at practice earlier this week. “I feel like I went into the game with the right mentality… We could hit better as a team, but there's definitely been some improvement. And I feel like all our pitchers did good, which was part of why we won. Bryce did good, Caleb did good, I did good.”
Though the Wolves’ pitching staff kept Juneau from scoring, the Bears likewise kept the score low and never allowed Sitka to run away with a game.
Chance Coleman said his teammates are looking good, but have some work to do on offense.
“We played well all around. I think the only thing I’d criticize all weekend is our base running,” Coleman said. “Our base-running errors accounted for a few runs in each game, so in a game where we only win by three or four runs, that's kind of too close.”
Juneau used no-doubles defense, with the first baseman very close to the plate, in an effort to keep Sitka’s batters from making it to second or third base on a hit, Coleman noted. That strategy was largely effective, but the Bears couldn’t follow up on their strong defense as their batters faltered in front of Sitka’s dominant pitching staff.
“We were hitting the ball well, they just played no-doubles defense,” Coleman said. “They were sitting out on the warning track, basically, catching all the hard line drives that we all had. We were all putting the ball in play, and we were just finding every fielder on the field, it seemed like. I don't think we could really change what we were doing.”
Like Hodges, Coleman noted the critical importance of Sitka’s pitchers in the victories.
“Bryce started the first night, shut them down, almost went a complete game, but he ran out of pitches… One hit and he had 15 strikeouts. Caleb was dominant once again, then Levi was dominant. He went the complete game and one run. So our pitching really did it, and we made the plays when we needed to,” Coleman said.
Looking into the next month of gameplay, he hopes the team can work on their base-running skills, but the squad overall is looking solid, he thinks.
“We seem to hit the ball… If our base running is fixed, then I think a lot of games should go in our favor,” he said.
Bryce Compagno-Calhoun told the Sentinel the team’s defense is in a good spot, though it took the players a moment to come up to full offensive speed against the Crimson Bears.
“The defense really backed me up, which was good. I would say in the first and second innings it was just a little rocky, just kind of finding my rhythm, but after that, I kind of zoned in and was really just dialed in,” Compagno-Calhoun said of the first game in the series.
Like Coleman, he noted that Juneau’s defense was staunch, too.
“They've got a solid outfield. They were catching everything out there… They didn't really hit the ball at all the whole trip. They just had good defense,” he said.
Compagno-Calhoun wants to see his team keep improving through the season, as the regional tournament is now only a month away.
“I just want to go in, start hitting the ball a lot better and just get our pitching dialed in, just kind of blow through everyone like what we did this past weekend,” he said.
The Wolves have a bye this weekend but face Ketchikan next week.
