Wasilla’s Pedro Camacho set the tone by lacing the first pitch of the game down the left-field line for a standup double to kickstart a three-run first inning rally.

Chugiak’s Landon Luebke had three RBIs, including that all-important insurance run in the seventh inning that proved to be the difference.

Service flexed its muscle on the bump, with four pitchers coming out of the bullpen in Jake Rafferty, Owen Hickman, Andrew Hickman and Hunter Christian.

Eagle River’s Killian Johannes got the final out with a runner in scoring position to nail down the save.

It was all-hands-on-deck for the Legion All-Stars, who pulled out a historic 6-5 win Thursday night over the Anchorage Bucs of the Alaska Baseball League in the Sladen Mohl Game at Mulcahy Stadium.

This was believed to be the first time in more than two dozen all-time meetings that the Legion All-Stars beat the Bucs, but not the first time the high school-aged squad beat an ABL team in the long history of this exhibition series. The Legion boys have beaten the Anchorage Glacier Pilots at least twice, most recently in 2001.

Camacho and Luebke did most of the heavy lifting on offense, combining for five hits with each slugger banging out a double. Camacho went 2-for-2 and reached base all four times while Luebke was 3-for-4 and knocked in runs in the first, third and seventh innings.

The Legion All-Stars also chopped down the potential tying run at the plate in the seventh, thanks to an 8-3-2 relay from center fielder Beckett Stolp of West to first baseman Rafferty to Camacho at the plate.

The Legion All-Stars were picked from the 29th annual College Coaches Camp that is named in honor of former Chugiak Post 33 manager Bill Lierman Sr., who passed away in 2004. His son Billy, an accomplished coach in his own right, was in the Legion dugout Thursday. His son was the starting pitcher.

Eagle River’s Liam Lierman – the reigning Don Rabung CIC MVP winner – looked sharp in his two innings as the southpaw retired five of the first six batters before Alex Pendergest of Dallas Baptist University singled and came around to score on a passed ball to pull the Bucs within 3-1.

The Legion All-Stars had jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning, keyed by Camacho’s leadoff double, RBIs by Rafferty and Luebke and a two-base Bucs’ throwing error.

The Legion team struck for two more runs in the third inning keyed by – who else? – Camacho and Luebke. Camacho was hit by pitch to lead off and scored on another Bucs throwing error while Luebke later doubled in a run to make it 5-1.

The Bucs are made up of college players and feature a handful of locals, including Anchorage’s Dylan Maltby – a former Gatorade Alaska Player of the Year out of South now playing for Phoenix College. Maltby went 3-for-4 and pulled the Bucs within 5-2 with a solo home run over the wall in left center field.

It wasn’t long ago that the former Legion standout was on the other side of this game.

The Bucs started three Anchorage players in Maltby at catcher, Isaac Johnson at pitcher and former Gatorade Alaska Player or the Year Curtis Hebert at shortstop.

Johnson, who is now pitching at NCAA Division II Concordia St. Paul, threw five innings. Only one of the five runs he allowed was earned. He tossed 1-2-3 frames in the second and fifth innings. Hebert, who is at NCAA Division I Portland, is hitting .400 in the ABL this year but went 0-for-3 with a walk. He did make a couple sweet defensive plays.

But the web gem of the night belonged to Christian, the Service shortstop who continues to flash the leather. He made a nice diving play and threw out Cole Howarth of Cal Baptist to end the third inning. Two weeks ago, he threw out a runner at the plate from his knees at short in the high school state title game.

In the seventh, Camacho, pinch-hitter Thomas Molloy of Eagle River and Lierman each reached on consecutive singles to load the bases. With one out, Luebke drove in his third run to make it 6-4.

The Legion All-Stars needed three pitchers for three outs in a white-knuckle-ride seventh inning. Christian started the seventh and retired the first batter before issuing a single and walk. Dimond’s Colin Doherty replaced him and gave up a single, but the potential tying run was thrown out at the plate to earn him a hold. Johannes was summoned from the bullpen for the final out and retired Logan Hokuf of Allegany College on a groundout and end the game.

The Bucs won last year’s game 8-0 and 13-3 the year before that. But there have been close games like in 2004, when the Bucs won 3-1, or 1999 when they won 5-3.

And then there was 1998, when Brandon Rogers saved the Bucs with a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to provide a 9-8 win.

In 2001, the Legion All-Stars beat the Pilots 13-7 behind Dan Strukie’s grand slam. Future MLB draft pick Brian Montalbo out of Dimond had a two-run triple in that game for the Pilots.

Before that you’d have to go back all the way to 1969 to find the last time a Legion team beat the Pilots. That year the Legion All-Stars were led by bench boss Lefty Van Brunt, who later became a longtime Pilots coach and helped them win several NBC World Series titles.

In that game, future New York Yankees great Chris Chambliss homered for the Pilots, as did West slugger Ron Pollock for Legion; Pollock went on to become the first Anchorage player to reach the professional level in 1973. That Legion team also featured a third baseman who went 1-for-3 and scored a run by the name of Steve Langdon, father of Alaska’s first NBA player Trajan Langdon, who played three seasons of pro ball for the San Diego Padres organization in college.