Seneca explodes for 15-6 win over Beecher

SENECA — Over its previous eight games prior to Friday’s game against visiting Beecher, the Seneca baseball team had dropped six decisions by a total of 12 runs and were looking to start a new trend.

The Fighting Irish trailed the Bobcats by three before taking the lead with four in the third, then after the visitors grabbed the advantage back by two, took the lead for good with three more in the fourth before plating four runs in both the fifth and sixth to walk away with a 15-6 win.

“We have been in the game in the fifth inning in all but two of our losses this season,” said Seneca coach Tim Brungard, his team now 3-8. “It’s just been a case of not being able to get that next hit or out.

“Early in the season our strikeout total was way too high, but we’ve preached if we can turn many of those strikeouts into ground balls somewhere good things will start happening. Putting the ball in play forces the defense to make plays.”

Seneca finished with 14 hits, including four by Paxton Giertz (three RBIs), three by Jace Mitchell (double, two RBIs) and two each by Brant Roe and Cam Shriey (triple, two RBIs), while taking advantage of eight Beecher errors and five hit batsmen.

“You’re right, we didn’t lose those games by much,“ Giertz said of the past few losses. ”It was so nice to come out here today and put together a really nice offensive performance and one were so many guys had a hand in it. Hitting is contagious. You see a couple guys get hits in front of you, and you just want to keep things going.

“We collectively changed up our approach at the plate today. We talked about just concentrating on putting the bat on the ball, and if that meant shortening swings and choking up, well that’s what we needed to do. I think today showed if we do that good things will happen for us.”

Trailing 6-4 in the fourth, Seneca took the lead for good on a Giertz RBI groundout prior to two runs scoring on a Bobcats’ throwing error.

“I thought our approach with two strikes was as good as it’s been all season,” Brungard said. “The guys adjusted and did a great job of just finding a way to get the bat on the ball and moved runners. We also had a couple of sacrifice bunts (by Brady Haines and Casey Klicker) we got down early that eventual turned into runs. Overall, I thought we played a pretty solid game.”

Haines (3⅔ IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 2 K) earned the win in relief of starter Roe and with Landyn Ramsey, who also added two RBIs at the plate, tossing the final two scoreless frames with three strikeouts.

Beecher (5-5) was led by two hits each from Chasten Clegg (four RBIs) and Steven Fezler (triple, RBI), while Ryan Cruz also recorded an RBI.

Nolen Lane (4 IP, 8 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K) suffered the loss with Chase Maher (6 H, 0 ER, 1 K) throwing the final two innings.

“That’s unfortunately what we’ve done this year,“ Beecher coach Brandon DuBois said of the errors. ”We’re young at some key spots, but we make an error, and then instead of shaking it off and making the next play, we compound that with more errors. Things just steamroll out of control.

“Today I even switched up the entire infield midway through, but it didn’t help. When you give a team 13 free base runners, it’s going to tough to win. We’ll just keep working on trying to find a way to get things turnaround when mistakes are made.”

Seneca is back in action hosting Serena at 11 a.m. Saturday. Beecher is off until Tuesday when it travels to play St. Anne.