Anchorage Daily News

Powerful hitting by Athletes in Action's Bryan Root and sloppy defense by the Anchorage Bucs helped the Fire come from behind for a 2-1 Alaska Baseball League victory Thursday at Mulcahy Stadium.

With the Fire trailing 1-0 in the fourth, Root crushed a solo home run over the right field wall in the top half of the inning off Bucs right-handed starter Steve Siers.

In the seventh, two Bucs infield errors led to the go-ahead run.

The victory kept the Fire two games ahead of the Mat-Su Miners with six games remaining. The Miners have four games left.

AIA closer Payton Tweddale earned the save after getting through a ninth-inning jam. The lefthander struck out the final batter with the tying run on second. Starter Taylor Millar tossed eight innings, improving to 3-1.

Siers dropped to 1-3 but pitched effectively, scattering four hits and striking out six.

The Bucs took a 1-0 lead in the third when Gabe Jacobo knocked in his 32nd RBI.

Chad Nading, a right-handed pitcher for the two-time NCAA national champion Oregon State Beavers and the only Alaskan on the Bucs' roster, pitched the final two innings and gave up just one hit.

Miners 8, Oilers 2

The Mat-Su Miners jumped Peninsula's usually stellar starter Matt Thomson for five first-inning runs Thursday night and cruised to an 8-2 Alaska Baseball League at Seymour Memorial Ballpark in Kenai.

Mat-Su raced to a 7-0 lead through two innings to chase Thomson, who recorded just four outs.

Chris McMurray ripped four hits for the Miners, who remain two games behind league-leading AIA. Mat-Su has just four games left.

Panners 2, Pilots 1

Dylan Lightell and Kevin Camacho combined on a seven-hitter Thursday night to lift the Fairbanks Goldpanners to a 2-1 win over the Anchorage Glacier Pilots at Growden Park in Fairbanks.

With both teams playing out the string -- each was long ago eliminated from the pennant race -- the Alaska Baseball League's longest-running rivalry is basically a battle of pride in a four-game series that continues tonight and Saturday.

Lightell scattered five hits in six innings, allowing one run. Camacho pitched three scoreless innings for the save. The Goldpanners, who have won the first two games of the series, turned three double plays.

Matt Dempsey provided the game-winning run with an RBI single in the sixth inning. The teams traded fifth-inning runs, with Anchorage's Aaron Barrows lashing a two-out RBI single in the top of the inning before Fairbanks' Chris Tremblay countered with an RBI single in the bottom half.