STILL IN THE HUNT
Lake Orion beats Clarkston, 10-4, to stay a game back in jam-packed OAA Red standings
When you’re in the position that three of the top four teams in the OAA Red find themselves this week, all you can do is do your job.
Four of the division’s seven teams entered the final series of the regular season within a game of first place, and two of the three tied for second at the start of the day stayed that way with wins on Monday
Lake Orion got itself out to an early lead and kept adding on runs, while lefty starter Kael Gahan was his usual dominant self, as the Dragons beat Clarkston, 10-4 on Monday, to stay a game behind league-leading Rochester Adams.
“You hear it all the time, we can only do — we can only control what we can control and we’ve been trying to get them to buy in. And the only game that matters is the one we’re playing. And the only pitch that we’re worried about is one that’s currently happening,” Lake Orion coach Andy Schramek said. “And hopefully, over the next week, we can continue to keep tacking on to what we did today.”
Monday’s win keeps the Dragons (17-13, 10-6 OAA Red) a game back of Adams (20-10, 115) and tied for second with West Bloomfield (25-8, 10-6), which both won their series openers, as well, while Clarkston (14-14, 9-7) falls to two games back, in fourth. More importantly for the Dragons, though, the win snapped a four-game skid, putting them on the road to try to win their first OAA Red series since sweeping Oxford to start the month, and hopefully putting a 3-10 stretch behind them.
“It’s been about two weeks. Yeah, it felt good to get runs early and keep tacking them on. We did a better job of hitting with runners in scoring position today, which has really been hurting us,” Schramek said.
The Dragons got three in the first with the help of just one hit, taking advantage of two walks and an error to take a 3-0 lead. They’d add a run in the second on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Joey Bruno, then blow it open with a five-run fifth.
Bruno led the inning off with a double, and scored on Casey Robertson’s RBI single, then a second run scored on a groundout by Brandon Nepjuk.
Another Clarkston error prolonged the inning, and Travis Acker (2 RBI) and Charlie Crissman (RBI) made it hurt with back-to-back doubles to make it 9-0.
Connor McCartan’s RBI single in the seventh made it a 10-0 lead, before the Wolves got four back in the bottom of the inning against the Dragons bullpen.
Luke Spicer had a two-run single and Logan Brimacombe an RBI single in the Wolves rally.
Before that, Gahan was lights out, giving up just four hits in five scoreless innings of work, striking out seven.
While both Clarkston and Lake Orion came into the day hoping that they could get a sweep and claim a share of the crown with the Highlanders, they both knew they were going to need help from Oxford, Adams’ final series opponent. It didn’t come Monday, with the Highlanders opening the series with an 8-1 win. West Bloomfield beat Rochester, 5-1, to keep pace.
But neither team could spare
a thought for whether that help was coming, either.
“Yeah, I mean, especially when you don’t control your own destiny there’s nothing you can do about it — you’ve got to control what you can control and we didn’t show up today we played a good team and we got our butts kicked,” Clarkston coach Addison Turk said. “We didn’t start on time. And when when they have a kid (Gahan) going like that on the mound, when they get a four-run lead, it makes it even that much tougher to come back.”
The two teams resume their series at Clarkston on Thursday, then play the finale at Lake Orion on Friday.