Crater bows out of Legion A regional with second loss to Alaska

Published 5:07 pm Monday, August 12, 2024

Crater’s bid for a potential American Legion A Northwest Regional title came to a close Saturday night in Roseburg, with the Comets falling 6-2 to Eagle River of Alaska.

It was the second time in the tournament that Crater (32-8) was foiled by the Wolves, who also beat the Comets 7-1 on the opening day of the double-elimination tournament.

Alaska went on to beat a team from Montana for the regional championship Sunday afternoon.

“It was not the greatest of draws this year,” said Crater head coach Jay Campbell, whose team twice won games in the loser’s bracket before a second matchup with Eagle River. “We put ourselves in a position to have a chance to win and it just didn’t go our way, but that’s baseball.”

Crater certainly seemed up for the challenge Saturday night, scoring twice in the bottom of the first inning after Cameron Bruce ripped an RBI triple to plate Morgan Austin and then scored on a sacrifice fly by Carson Noce.

“The kids came out and actually had some good at-bats that first inning and hit some balls really hard,” said Campbell. “The ball that Cam Bruce hit bounced off the wall in dead center, which is 385 (feet), and it doesn’t carry there usually so it was hit very well.”

Unfortunately for the Comets, that would take care of all the scoring on this night and Eagle River answered right back with three runs in the top of the second to take the lead for good after a costly error kept the inning moving for the Alaskans.

“We had a lot of momentum going,” added Campbell, “but we just came out in the top of the second and made a big error that should’ve been a double-play ball and you could just kind of feel the momentum change right there and we just never recovered.”

Eagle River pitcher Tommy Molloy went the distance and allowed only five hits overall by Crater, with Austin, Carter Furhman, Tanner Keith and Andrew Sweet joining Bruce with one hit apiece.

Molloy finished with nine strikeouts and one walk with no earned runs in seven innings.

“Their kid really settled down and as the game went on he got tougher,” said Campbell. “He was starting to locate his breaking ball and was able to pitch backwards. He did a really good job of neutralizing us offensively.”

Alex Johnson was tagged with the pitching loss after allowing seven hits in four innings, with only one of the five runs against him earned. Johnson finished with five walks against two strikeouts.

“He was a little erratic and had a few more walks than we would’ve liked,” said Campbell, “but he definitely did enough for us to be in a position to win. We’ve been pretty solid defensively all year and we just made some uncharacteristic mistakes defensively and they really hurt us.”

Campbell said Alaska was by far the most veteran team at the regional, with two Class of 2023 graduates and four Class of 2024 graduates on its roster.

“Alaska was good,” said Campbell. “I don’t know if this is a thing every year but they come from a situation where this team played in the state tournament last year and the winner goes to the Triple-A and the loser goes to the Single-A. So this is basically a Triple-A team but they came to the Single-A tournament because they got second place in Alaska.”

All in all, though, Campbell said he was pleased with Crater’s play this summer, which included earning a state championship two weeks ago in Redmond.

“We had a great summer and the kids learned a lot,” said the coach. “We played a lot of baseball — 40 games — and spent a lot of time together. From where we started at the beginning of the summer to where we are now, I couldn’t be more pleased with the growth and development that every player made.”