The Peninsula Oilers learned “pay back” against the 1st place Anchorage Bucs, and 2nd place Mat-Su Miners with a pair of weekend wins, running their winning streak in the ABL to three.
They began with a drubbing of the Bucs on Saturday, 13-3. Arnad Mulemakic was the winning pitcher, going 4 innings, striking out 5 and yielding 3 unearned runs. His ERA is now a rock-bottom 1.69.
Oiler bats were led by Owen McElfatrick and Nick Costello, each with a double and 3 RBIs. Joining the double parade were Michael Elko and Leighton Helfrick.
The Oilers sped out to a 5-0 lead but 3 errors allowed the Bucs to close the gap to 5-3 at the end of the 5th inning. Oilers pasted Bucs pitching with 3 runs in the 8th and 5 in the 9th for a total of 13 hits.
Oiler relievers Connor Kershaw and Connor Throneberry were solid in relief, allowing no runs to the Bucs.
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On Sunday the Oilers dished out a 9-2 shellacking against the MatSu Miners. Pitcher Ty Correa was brilliant through 7 innings, striking out 3 and allowing no walks, yielding 2 unearned runs and, despite an error in the official Box Score, was the winning pitcher for the Oilers. Correa’s ERA in the ABL is now a stingy 0.79 and leads the league. He also leads Oiler pitchers in Innings Pitched with nearly 23. William Grimm was solid in relief, shutting out the Miners in the final two frames.
After the Miners tied the score in the 7th, the Oilers exploded for 6 runs in the top of the 8th with Correa still the pitcher of record, led by Theo Forshey with a double and 2 RBIs, and were matched by 2 RBIs from Owen McElfatrick and Nick Costello.
Costello leads the ABL with a scorching .447 batting average.
The next Oiler game is tonight against the Chugiak Eagle River Chinooks at 6:00 pm. All games are heard on ESPN 1140, 96.9 FM and radiokenai.com. Bob Bird and Nick Sorrell provide the play by play for all home games.
