AOTW: Kings of the Diamond after a summer of baseball

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Sadly, it is time to put away the peanuts, Cracker Jacks and baseball bats for the season, but not without crowning three worthy champions at three different levels.

Each summer, collegiate baseball players from all over the country come to The Last Frontier to play in the Alaska Baseball League.

And the Mat-Su Miners struck gold once again, coming out on top as Top of the World Series champions for back-to-back seasons after defeating the Anchorage Bucs 13-8 in the title-sealing game.

″The goal was to win it," Mat-Su’s Austin Parks said after going 3-for-5 with 4 RBIs. “Right out on the first day we said, ‘We are going to win this thing’. Personally, I just wanted to come out and have fun playing baseball again, so it was a lot of fun.”

Meanwhile at the high school level, the Kenai Twins dethroned the Service Cougars 4-2 for their first Alaska Legion Baseball State Championship.

Jayden Stuyvesant drove in the first run of the game and was named tournament MVP, while Matthew Schilling threw six innings in the championship and earned the Tony Wylie Big Stick Award.

“It feels great, we’ve been in semifinals three years out of the last four I’ve been playing and lost [to] Service every time,” Stuyvesant said. “Feels good to finally beat them, especially in the championship game.”

“It means a lot, most of these guys I have been with since Little League and we’ve built a great brotherhood so just to be with them one last time here on the field, it is a great experience,” Schilling added. “People down in Kenai, you don’t think you have as much talent, but we’ve proved it that we have the talent to be up here and compete with the D1 schools.”

And for the Little Leaguers, ‘Abbott O’Rabbit’ won their way to a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The 12U team defeated Juneau in the Alaska Major League State Championship, winning the right to represent Alaska at the Little League Baseball Northwest Regional Tournament in San Bernardino, California.

“These kids put in the work,” Abbott O’Rabbit head coach Thomas Mueller said. “Most of these kids play year-round, indoors in the offseason. Alaska’s got good baseball and we can’t wait to show it off and represent the state. I mean, these are great kids, I am excited.”

Three levels, three champions of Alaska baseball diamonds.

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Originally published by alaskasnewssource.com. Read the full story at alaskasnewssource.com.