Batavia pitches out of trouble, slugs two homers to beat Lake Park

BATAVIA – Batavia‘s pitchers got into plenty of trouble against Lake Park on Wednesday, but they did a great job of getting out of it.

Despite almost constant traffic on the basepaths, the Bulldog hurlers were able to hold the Lancers to just five runs.

The offense did the rest, slugging two home runs among 10 hits. It all added up to a 10-5 DuKane Conference victory in Batavia.

Liam Darre and Brandon Oke went deep in the Bulldogs’ five-run second inning and finished with two hits apiece. Darren Barnes had an RBI double among his three hits. Brennon Zeng had two hits and reached base four times.

“It’s not often a team wins by five after giving up 10 walks and seven hit batters,” Batavia coach Alex Beckmann said.

But the Bulldogs allowed just three hits and they made the pitches when they needed to. The Lancers left 13 runners on base. They loaded the bases in the second through the fifth innings.

The Batavia defense did its part. Darre scooped up three throws at first base, all with the bases loaded, and Ryan Rodriguez started a double play that likely saved a big inning in the fifth.

Gavin Rosengren, the final Batavia pitcher, recorded the last nine outs, including the only clean inning in the seventh.

Darre’s homer to left field leading off the second put Batavia ahead to stay. Chase Hampton followed with a single and Oke parked a curve ball over the fence in left center to make it 4-1.

“In my first at-bat, I saw the curveball pretty well,” Oke said. “I was fouling off waiting to get it again. I got it back and fortunately I didn’t miss it.”

Batavia (5-7, 2-1) tacked on two more runs in the second. The Bulldogs added two in the fourth and single runs in the fifth and sixth. Oke, Barnes and Zeng drove in runs, and Zeng came in on a wild pitch.

Maxwell Mohapp drove in two runs with bases-loaded walks for Lake Park. Chris Ray reached base four times by hit, walk, or hit-by-pitch. Ninth hitter Max Alvarado walked three times and scored twice.

The Lancers (8-6, 1-2) scored twice in the fifth after an unpromising start. Rocco Jones led off with a single but was erased on a double play. Ray then restarted the rally with a grounder past second base that nearly rolled to the wall in center leaving Ray on second. Three walks and a hit batter produced two runs.

Lake Park’s Jack Gallagher was hit in the helmet in that fifth inning. After being attended to by a trainer for several minutes, he was able to walk off under his own power but left the game.

https://www.dailyherald.com/20250416/prep-baseball/baseball-batavia-pitches-out-of-trouble-knocks-off-lake-park/