By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
After an initial loss in the first tournament game against the Thunder Mountain Falcons, the Sitka High Wolves baseball team found their footing and secured two victories to close out the series, Friday and Saturday.
While Sitka fell 14-8 in Friday’s first game at Moller Field, the team pulled together and eked out a 10-9 win hours later. In the third and final game of the tournament Saturday, Sitka won 6-0.
In the same tournament, the Lady Wolves softball team struggled on defense in their face-off with Juneau-Douglas, losing 16-3 Thursday and again 16-7 and 26-6 Friday.
In Friday’s initial baseball game, fielding errors took a toll on the Wolves.
“As an individual player, I need to work on bringing the ball better,” pitcher Bridger Bird told the Sentinel after the loss. “I also need to get my throw down a little bit more dialed in. But as a team, it’s really just field at this point and batting and warming up correctly. And I think that’s a big part of the reason why we didn’t do good.”
Senior player Stephen Harmon complimented Bird’s pitching, but stressed the need for the team as a whole to make plays in critical moments of gameplay.
“Bridger was doing amazing... He threw out multiple guys, got us to outs we needed to get out... I feel like our team never really gave up. We’re trying all the time. Obviously, our coaches are amazing. You’ve just got to make plays,” Harmon said.
While the team struggled on defense, Bird said the Wolves’ hitting was on point.
“We’re batting pretty good. We had some good base running but our field definitely needs a lot of work,” Bird said.
New to the team this season, Sitka’s Garren Henning agreed with Bird’s assessment.
Sitka High ‘s Garren Henning pitches against the Thunder Mountain Falcons, Friday at Moller Field. While the Wolves lost the first game, the team bounced back and won the next two.
(Sentinel photo by James Poulson)
“We did good hitting in the beginning and then after that it kind of just fell apart, but I think I think we did good fouling off pitches, racking up the pitch count,” Henning said. “And really good base running too – we had lots of stolen bases.”
Later in the baseball game, the Wolves struggled when at bat. In the bottom of the fifth and sixth innings, only three Sitka batters stepped up to home plate before the team accumulated three outs.
After only a few weeks on his new team, Henning said, he appreciates the degree of independence the coaches afford him.
“I actually really like it, because the coaches are a lot more easygoing. They kind of let the players play how they want to play,” Henning said. “And I think it’s better, it’s good for the chemistry of the team because I feel like people can actually play how they want to play.”
Contrasting the team’s initial loss with subsequent wins, Sitka coach Ken Carley cited his team’s defense and pitching.
“Too many errors and walks in the first game... We were behind most of the second game because of walks until Tyler Barton came (onto the mound) in the fourth inning. He pitched great and got the win,” Carley told the Sentinel. “Our defense was much better for the last two games. Nik Calhoun pitched six innings, only giving up two hits and Dylan Marx finished the seventh inning for us.”
The Wolves baseball team flies to Juneau later this week for another tournament.
Meanwhile, Sitka’s softball squad struggled against last year’s state champions – Juneau-Douglas.
In Thursday’s tournament opener, Juneau took control in the first minutes of gameplay. In the top of the first inning, the Bears got 10 runs and gained the momentum that propelled them to victory.
The Lady Wolves pushed back in the first game on Friday, but nonetheless lost 16-7 on Moller Field. In the day’s second game, this time on the Kimsham Field, Juneau-Douglas took a 26-6 win over the Lady Wolves. Sitka pitcher Kaiya Balovich said that while her squad communicated better in the second game, many of her team’s errors were mental.
“We had way better communication. We were talking a lot more and the energy was just better – a lot of our errors were mental. So we just need to get out of our heads,” Balovich said after the second loss.
Junior Macee Steinson underscored the need to work as a cohesive unit on the field.
“It’s really fun. It feels more real this year and I feel like our team is playing together more and we’re all showing up … The team has to work together. I feel like we did work together for most of this game now. It’s just like those little things that just go wrong,” Steinson said after the second game.
After a difficult loss in the tournament opener, Steinson said, her team’s batting is improving.
“We’re getting some hits. Finally, our bats are hot,” she said.
After a year of playing softball under COVID restrictions, Balovich was glad to be back on the diamond for a full, unhindered season.
“I don’t know. I just love softball… The teammates. I really love all of them,” the sophomore said. She’s played since she was 5 years old.
Looking back on the first two games, coach Jael McCarty stressed the importance of reducing errors.
“Our bats were alive from the beginning and shutting them down in the first inning is different. You can’t have, like yesterday, five errors in the first inning against the state championship team that Juneau is and feel like you can get back in a game like that… With a team like that they’re going to figure out pitchers and they’re going to start hitting so they had some great hits. We made some great plays. I’m not disappointed with how today went,” the coach said.
Looking to future games, McCarty hopes her squad will be able to maintain energy and momentum for the entirety of a match.
“Our team is an aggressive hitting team,” McCarty said. “Our field – I’m actually really happy with it, with our field overall. The big thing is going to be, as young as we are, when we make mistakes, can we bring each other back and keep the energy up staying focused for seven (innings) instead of for four?”
The Lady Wolves host Thunder Mountain in Sitka on Friday and Saturday.
