Miners earn ABL championship with wild walk-off victory

As Ridge Erickson rounded third and jetted toward home with his team trailing in the bottom of the ninth, the Mat-Su Miners catcher slipped to the grass.

But what could have been a minor disaster turned into a moment Erickson, his team, and a standing-room-only crowd will never forget.

Erickson recovered and scored the game-tying run and teammate Evan Bitler followed just behind with the go-ahead score, both on James McGee's two-run single, to give the Miners a 9-8 walk-off, come-from-behind victory over the Anchorage Bucs during the final game of the Alaska Baseball League Top of the World Series Wednesday night at Hermon Brothers Field in Palmer.

With the win, Mat-Su earned its first ABL title since 2018.

"I was going hard and halfway I just fell. I looked up and (the ball) was at the wall," Erickson said as he celebrated with teammates and fans following the victory.

With the Miners trailing 8-7 with one out, Erickson and Bitler collected back-to-back singles to put McGee at the plate.

McGee said his approach at the plate was, "kind of just do my job."

"Ridge got a knock, then Bitler got a knock. Our motto in the dugout from the seventh inning on was just pass the bat," McGee said. "We passed the bat, and fortunately, it happened to be me. But I would have trusted anybody behind me to do that as well."

With Erickson on second and Bitler on first, McGee drove a single into left field. And that's when things got wild.

As McGee rounded first, Erickson hit the deck halfway to home just about the time the ball got by the Anchorage left fielder. McGee said he didn't see either happen. He just thought he was moving the runners along. Then McGee said he saw the outfielder chasing the ball and Bitler rounding third.

"I was like, wait, we might just win this game," McGee said. "It happened so fast."

Right after Bitler crossed the plate, the Mat-Su dugout emptied and the Miners sprinted to the infield to celebrate with McGee.

"It's hard to process everything. It happened so fast. I still can't believe it happened," McGee.

Mat-Su's ninth-inning heroics capped a wild comeback. The Miners, who had only seven losses the entire summer, trailed 7-0 midway through the fifth inning Wednesday. Mat-Su head coach Tyler LeBrun said he never doubted his team.

"I knew our guys had every bit of fight left in them to go find a way to call back in," LeBrun said.

LeBrun said assistant coach Jackson Jarvis was the vocal leader.

"JJ did a great job of kind of firing them up. And they answered the call. We just fought all night," LeBrun said.

LeBrun said "culture" is key.

"The culture we create here is pretty cool. They're playing for something more than just baseball, but looking for each other," LeBrun said.

Mat-Su jumped back into the game with a four-run fifth inning. Bitler smacked a two-run dinger late in the inning to cut the score to 7-4. Erickson also had a run-scoring single and Greg Pierantoni scored on a wild pitch.

The Miners tied the game at 7 with three more in the seventh. Erickson, Bitler and Carter Eberhard all had run-scoring singles.

"Down seven, not too many teams can do that," Erickson said of the rally.

The Miners finished with a dozen hits in the win, including nine from the fifth inning on. Bitler was 3 for 4, with three runs and three RBI. McGee had two hits and drove in three. Erickson had two hits, two runs and an RBI. Pierantoni also scored twice.

Reliever Kade Arn retired six straight Bucs in the eighth and ninth to earn the win on the mound for the Miners.

LeBrun is in his sixth season as head coach of the Miners, and now has his first ABL championship as the team's skipper. This year also marked his third regular season title. LeBrun has posted a 148-78-1 record as field manager.

The Miners also earned their first league championship since 2018, and seventh during Pete Christopher's time as the general manager of the team.