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Photo by Eric Engman

From the outside looking in, there wasn’t much hope for the Sitka Wolves.

They were trailing by two in the bottom of the ninth against a team they weren’t supposed to beat.

Facing a pitcher they weren’t supposed to score against.

This is where their dynasty was supposed to end. This was the pitcher who was supposed to end it.

But then again, there’s a reason they play these games.

Ricky Sheahan doubled to keep Sitka alive — driving in the first two runs Ty Griffith has allowed all season — and Chili Rivera ended it in the 10th as the three-time defending champion Wolves claimed a 6-5 win over the previously unbeaten Chugiak Mustangs in the first round of the ASAA State High School Baseball Tournament on Thursday at Growden Memorial Park.

“We’re so used to being down three runs, two runs, one run, we just stick with it,” Rivera said. “We’ve had a couple comeback victories this year.”

None like this one though.

After Sitka, the No. 2 seed out of the Southeast Conference, touched up Jacob Brownlee and Casey Spink for an early 3-0 lead, the Cook Inlet Conference champion Mustangs brought in Griffith to shut Sitka down, and he did just that.

Griffith came in and struck out the side in the third, then went on to throw five more scoreless innings while his team battled back to tie the game against Sitka starter Ross Venneberg.

Then, on Venneberg’s 143rd pitch of the game, Chugiak took its first lead.

With runners on first and third and one out, Brownlee laid a suicide squeeze down the third-base line. By the time Venneberg got to the ball, he had no play to get Griffith at the plate. After looking home, Venneberg turned and threw to first base, but no one was covering. That let Avery Beck come around to score.

After that, the Mustangs just needed Griffith to do what he’d done 26 innings before — leave without allowing a run.

But this time, he hung a curveball.

After hitting Sean O’Neill with a pitch and walking Venneberg with one out, Griffith had Sheahan off balance while getting ahead in the count.

Then the pitcher made a mistake and Sheahan laced it to the left-center field gap, plating O’Neill and Venneberg.

“He just hung a curveball over the middle of the plate,” Sheahan said. “I saw it pretty good and hit it.

“He has some pretty good pitches and he’s a good pitcher. That was the first mistake he threw me.”

Amon Johnson would line into a double play to end Griffith’s final inning on the mound.

All told, he struck out 10, allowed four hits and two runs in seven innings of work.

“That’s the typical Ty. He goes out and he throws,” Chugiak coach Bill Lierman. “He shut them down, which is what we asked him to do. Unfortunately, the probability of that guy getting a hit right there was probably pretty slim, but he was able to do it.”

The Mustangs then hurt their own cause in the 10th.

With two outs and a runner on second, reliever Zach Morse forced Rivera to send a hard grounder to Chugiak shortstop Jesse Oakes.

Rushing to get the speeding Rivera, Oakes sailed his throw over the head of Griffith — who was back at first base — and David Reynolds came in to score.

“I got pretty lucky right there,” Rivera said. “He might have had me, I don’t know.”

Venneberg, who threw one-hit ball through the first five innings, battled to keep Sitka in the game, pitching nine innings while throwing 146 pitches, striking out 11 and allowing five runs (four earned) on four hits.

“I just told myself that our dynasty is on the line,” Venneberg said “We have to battle.”

That’s exactly what they did Thursday, even when things were at their worst.

Sitka advances to the semifinals where the Wolves will play North Pole at 7 tonight. Chugiak plays Soldotna in a consolation bracket game at 2 p.m.