The Goldpanners wrapped up their second to last home series of the year with a 14-2 win over the Bercovich Honors, securing four wins in the five-game series and advancing to 20-9-2 on the year.
Both the pitching unit and the batting lineup were dominant throughout for the team. They scored 14 runs over a three-inning stretch with six in the third, five in the fourth and three in the fifth. They combined for 17 hits as a team and held Bercovich to four.
“Our offense and pitching have been really good,” Goldpanners’ field manager Carlos Gonzales said postgame. “The defense – we need to step it up still. We’re winning these games, but we’re not playing as well as we can defensively.”
Nine extra-base hits helped propel the Goldpanner offense. Jacob Badawi finished the game with a 4-5 performance with four RBIs and two doubles. Grant Scholzen, Bubba Rocha, Tyson Reis, Matt Chavez and Alex Garcia all finished with doubles as well, and Griffin Harrison knocked the lone triple for the team.
Strong pitching complimented the hot bats throughout the series. Wade Lawson started on Sunday, going four innings with seven strikeouts, three walks, one earned run and three hits allowed. He was followed by Reagan Rivera, David Butler and Logan Drummond out of the bullpen. They combined for five innings, one hit, no earned runs and four strikeouts.
The win marked the second-straight double-digit victory for the Goldpanners over the Honors, and their third straight overall. They finished as winners of four out of five over the visitors, giving Gonzales a dominant series victory in his first complete series at the helm.
“Selfishly, it’s great,” Gonzales said laughingly about the achievement. “I’m still a little bitter that we lost three straight in the series before, but it was nice to get back on track. Hopefully next week we’ll keep it rolling a little bit too.”
Only one homestand at Growden Park remains for the Goldpanners. They’ll look to defend their home field once again as Team Philippines comes to town from July 23-27. After that, the Goldpanners head to the Marshall Gates Tourney in Salt Lake City, Utah from July 30-Aug. 3 to round out their season.
“I think it’s going to be fun,” Gonzales said of wrapping up play in Fairbanks. “I told these guys, ‘You have a week left, you better go do stuff if you haven’t done it yet.’ It’s more on the outside stuff because Fairbanks is so beautiful obviously. So, I’d want them to just have fun this last week. This could be their last time in Alaska ever, probably for a lot of them, so just have fun.”
Contact Caleb Jones at (907) 459-7530 or at cjones@newsminer.com.
