The West Valley baseball team kicked off their season on Wednesday in a tournament hosted by Kodiak High School. Joining West Valley in the field are Wasilla, South Anchorage, Colony, and Kodiak.
The Wolfpack finished as the top-performing local ASAA DI baseball team last season, posting a 12-7-2 record and securing second place in both the Railbelt Conference regular season standings and the conference tournament. Their performances earned them a spot in the state tournament.
Their 2025 season started against the South Anchorage High School Wolverines, another state tournament team from a year ago. It resulted in a 13-2 loss for West Valley.
A three-run home run in the top of the fourth inning from Landon Gasser opened the scoring for the Wolverines, who went on to plate the game’s first five runs. South Anchorage added two more in the fifth — one on a walk and another on an RBI groundout.
West Valley answered with its strongest push in the bottom of the fourth. Eli Taylor tripled to drive in Liam Irish, and a liner from Finn Lindsey led to an error that allowed Taylor to score, cutting the deficit to 5-2.
But the Wolverines responded by scoring in each of their final three trips to the plate, steadily pulling away in the seven-inning contest.
Their biggest inning came in the fifth, where they scored four runs on a double, a sacrifice fly, and a groundout. They added another on a double in the sixth and tacked on two more in the seventh, coming on a single and an error, to secure the win.
West Valley totaled three hits in the win, coming from Irish, Taylor and Brayden Witt, but struck out 16 times as a group, with nine of those coming against David Feigner, the starter for the Wolverines.
Five different arms took the mound for West Valley. Taylor was the opening day starter, going two innings with three strikeouts, three earned runs on one hit and three walks.
He was followed by Bryson Roon, Wyatt Otness, Elias Powell and Witt. Overall, the pitching staff went seven innings with a good number of strikeouts at 10, but six hits and 10 walks drove the earned run total to eight.
The team squares off against Wasilla on Thursday for their second game of the tournament with other games coming against South Anchorage again on Friday and Colony on Saturday.
Contact Caleb Jones at (907) 459-7530 or at cjones@newsminer.com.
