Wilson, Gatter come back to haunt Legion All-Stars in Bucs win
Leland Wilson
Some familiar faces came back to haunt the Alaska Legion All-Stars during the annual Sladen Mohl Game against the Anchorage Bucs.
Bucs starter Leland Wilson out of West pitched five fabulous innings and infielder Ricky Gatter out of South went 4-for-4 and reached base in all five plate appearances to power a 13-3 victory in the exhibition game at Mulcahy Stadium.
The game capped the four-day College Coaches Camp, which celebrated its 27th year this summer.
Wilson, who just finished his freshman season at Texas Tech University, struck out seven batters while giving up four hits, one walk and one run.
The Bucs saved a run in the second inning after center fielder Woody Hadeen gunned down a runner at the plate, taking an RBI away from Dimond’s Joe Moriarty.
Gatter, who just completed his freshman season at Skagit Valley College, lined base hits to all parts of the field in addition to an infield single. He scored twice, drove in two runs and walked.
Ricky Gatter
Another local player for the Bucs, former West player Luke Langnes from Grinnell College, walked twice, scored twice and had an RBI.
The Bucs’ Pac-12 power hitter Jake Skipworth out of Cal-Berkeley had five RBIs on a double and two-run home run to left field.
For the Legion All-Stars, Eagle River’s Jack Molloy pitched his team’s lone scoreless inning and Eagle River’s Josh Thompson, Bartlett’s Carl Colavecchio and Wasilla’s Pedro Camacho each scored a run.
Base hits came from Dimond’s Logan Sweet, Eagle River’s Josh Thompson and Cam Witte, Dimond’s Moriarty and South’s Isaac Johnson. Johnson also pitched 1.1 innings.
The Legion All-Star team featured 22 players, including eight underclassmen as the youth movement continues in The Last Frontier.
“The direction of Alaska baseball is moving upward,” said Central Washington University’s Joel Johnson, one of seven college coaches from the camp.
Johnson was also here in 2018 and said Alaska baseball has stepped up since then.
“That’s a credit to the coaches in the area for taking care of the young guys,” Johnson said.
The College Coaches Camp is sponsored by Alaska Airlines and the Alliance for Support of American Legion Baseball in Alaska.
The camp is named after its founding father Bill Lierman Sr., the former Chugiak coach and Bucs president who passed away in 2004.
The annual game was named after Sladen Mohl, who played for South and the Bucs before he was killed tragically by a DUI driver in 2019.
