Miners Drop Season Opener to Bucs

The Miners had a promising start to the year after being down 1 after the first inning.

They quickly added 2 runs in the bottom of the second after a lead off walk for Will Musson. Scott Arthur moved him over with a well placed sacrifice bunt. Nick Croce then came to the plate and singled for the first RBI of the season for the Miners. He then stole second and Jonathan Johnson got a single to advance him to third. The Bucs did not have the best defensive play and Croce scored the 2nd run on a error.

Almonte relinquished a triple to deep center field in the top of the third to bring the score back even at 2's. The bottom of the 3rd and top of the 4th were very uneventful as each team had a 1, 2, 3 inning. The bottom of the 4th is where the Miners showed off their offensive skills. They scored 3 runs with hits by Arthur, Croce, Johnson and Shane Brown. Add in Nick Cox getting hit by a pitch and Newalu's fielder's choice and the team had 6 base runners during the inning. Croce tallied his 2nd RBI of the game while Brown added one of his own to the box score.

After a very promising 4th inning, the Miner's could not quite hold onto the lead. The Bucs scored 4 runs in the top of the 5th led by a Brian Bello 3 run homer and the Miners could never really recover. The Bucs tacked on one more in the 6th and another in the 9th to bring it to the final score of 8-5.

The Miners looked a little off in the field with 4 errors on the day (meaning only 4 of the runs were earned) which Coach Raley attributes to having the players not being used to playing with each other yet. The Miners also showed a little bit of trouble on the mound giving up those 8 runs. The ABL is usually a lower scoring league with these college players not used to hitting with wood bats.

On the flip side, the Miners showed a lot guts making a couple comebacks in order to try to pull out the W. Also, offensively the squad looked very good. They did a good job of getting runners on base, advancing the runners (through bunts, steals, etc.) and getting the well timed hit with runners in scoring position. If they played as well offensively in the rest of the games as they did in the first, they will hang near the top of the standings like they have the past few seasons.

The next game is another home league game against the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks. The Mat-Su Miners pregame starts at 6:45 on matsuminers.org. Remember to check out the chat room and live scorebook too!