Sports

South, Eagle River to play for Legion baseball state championship

Eagle River will make its first championship game appearance Tuesday when the Wolves meet South in the final game of the American Legion state baseball tournament at Mulcahy Stadium.

First pitch is at 5:30 p.m.

Cam Witte took a no-hitter into the seventh inning to propel Eagle River past Ketchikan 7-0 in a Monday semifinal game. In the other game, South used a 13-hit attack to upend three-time defending champion Juneau 12-5.

Witte didn’t allow a hit until Ketchikan’s Caleb Eisenhower doubled with one out in the final inning. Witte left after that at-bat because of the tournament’s 105 pitch limit, and reliever Jack Molloy retired two of the three batters he faced to preserve the shutout.

Witte struck out six.

Eagle River broke open a scoreless game with two runs in the third inning. Gavin Henning hit a leadoff triple for the first of four hits that inning. The Wolves added four runs in the fourth and one run in both the sixth and seventh innings.

South and Juneau combined for nine runs in the first inning of their game -- South led 5-4 -- but it was all South after that.

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Eight players had hits -- Maddux Solland and Joey Serra were both 3 for 4 -- and eight players scored runs for the Wolverines. Kellen Curtis scored three times, and Solland, Serra, Reid Brock and Kaden Bevegni all drove in two runs apiece.

Bevegni had the game’s biggest hit, a two-run triple in the first inning.

Leading the way for Juneau was Isaiah Nelson, who was 2 for 4 with one run and one RBI.

The Midnight Suns were trying to reach the Legion championship for the fourth straight time -- Juneau won state titles in 2017, 2018 and 2019. There was no Legion season last year because of the pandemic, although some of the state’s teams formed the Alliance Baseball League to fill the void. The West Eagles won that league’s state championship.

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