South High earned a pair of pool-play victories the day prior in its run to a bracket-play bye during Friday’s second day of the Division I State Softball Championships.
The Wolverines followed up the opening performance with their 12th win in 14 games, this time in the winner’s quarterfinals at Fairbanks’ South Davis Complex. Now as teams venture to championship Saturday, a familiar foe stands in the way of South sauntering its way to more potential playoff glory.
The Wolverines (24-3-1 record) and Cook Inlet Conference rival Chugiak (29-10-1) are set to meet for sixth time Saturday at 10 a.m. in the winner’s bracket semifinal of the double-elimination tournament. The teams met in last season’s state finale, an 8-2 South victory.
Photo by Tim Keaveny/Special to the Alaska Sports Report
Historically, the Wolverines have earned three DI crowns (2016, 2017 and 2021). The Mustangs are hoping to add to titles won in1998 and 2003. Also still scrapping are loser’s bracket winners from the CIC Dimond (22-13) and East (11-13-1), which also meet Saturday at 10.
The Lynx have yet to earn a state title. The Thunderbirds took top honors in 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019.
That’s a nice haul of hardware for the DI Final Four. The championship game is slated for Saturday at 2:45 p.m. with an if-necessary game to follow.
CIC champ South owns a 4-1 record versus Chugiak. The Mustangs hung one of the few losses on the Wolverines, a 5-3 victory on May 16, while South escaped Thursday’s state pool-play contest with an 8-7 win.
South Softball goes 2-0 in pool play at State. South beat West Valley 13-2 in 5 and came back from behind to beat Chugiak 8-7 in 7. Alexis Keaveny hit the walk off RBI single to win the Chugiak game. @emccutcheon32 hit 2 bombs today and a 260’ foul that had an unintended target pic.twitter.com/DVmcmhkepH
— SAHS Softball (@SoftballSAHS) June 3, 2022
Chugiak won two games Friday – 18-15 over Dimond and 12-3 versus East. South downed West Valley 10-2 in its only Friday game. Dimond and East remained alive with loser’s bracket wins over West Valley and Colony respectively.
On the DII front, Delta Junction (fourth) and Ketchikan (third” finished out of the championship “money” a season ago. Going into Saturday, the Huskies and Kings sit pretty as the lone unbeatens.
Delta (19-2-1) and Ketchikan (23-12) meet in the winners’ semifinal Saturday at 10:30 a.m. Thunder Mountain (20-15) and North Pole (31-6-1) will also play in the loser’s bracket at 10:30.
The DII title tilt is set for 3:15 p.m. with the “what-if” game to follow.