Baseballers suffer doubleheader loss

By Michael Leek
Sports Editor

The LCC baseball team’s seven-game win streak was broken after suffering two losses to the Kellogg Community College Bruins on Thursday, May 2. LCC lost the first game 8-2 and the second game 6-4.

The Stars’ conference record fell to 16-7 and their overall record dropped to 33-15 overall. Kellogg, with these two wins, become conference champion of the MCCAA Western Conference.

In the first game, the Stars fell behind 6-0 after four innings. They were able to score a run in the bottom of the fifth inning but never accumulated multiple runs in an inning.

Sophomore pitcher Gavin Walters started on the mound for LCC this game and pitched three innings, giving up four hits and six runs before being substituted. His sub was freshman pitcher Sean Bartlett, who pitched the other four innings of the game. He gave up four hits as well, but only two runs.

LCC had nine hits in the first game. Sophomore Preston Leon led the team in hits with three and freshman Brayden Jones followed with two. Freshman Aamir Mitchell had a home run for LCC.

LCC's Kevin Davis hits a line drive during action May 2 at Municipal Field.  Photo by Kaitlyn Delaney

The second game was a better outing for the Stars and freshman infielder Kevin Davis said it was cleaner defensively.

“In game one, we were very uptight and trying to do more than we needed and it showed as we were messing up routine plays,” Davis said. “Game two was a lot cleaner defensively, we just had a lot of walks and struggled getting ahead in counts.”

The Stars used three pitchers in the second game, starting with freshman Easton Remick, who pitched three innings and gave up two hits and two runs.

Sophomore Braden LaRusso pitched a little over one inning and gave up two hits and four runs. Sophomore Blake Gedrich finished the game for the Stars, giving up three hits but no runs.

Offensively, the Stars struggled, getting only four hits. Sophomore Evan Mendoza hit a home run and had all four LCC RBIs.

LCC freshman catcher Austin Pokley puts the tag on a Kellogg Community College player attempting to score during action in Lansing on May 2.  Photo by Kaitlyn Delaney

The next two games on Saturday, May 4 at Kellogg Community College, are crucial as they will decide if the Stars make it to the post-season.

Davis said their mentality going into Saturday will be playing with urgency.

“It's basically do or die at this point,” Davis said. “We know that we have to take both to make playoffs, so our mindset it to put everything on the line because you don’t want to leave any regrets on what we could’ve done. We know we’re the better team, we just need to show up and play our game.”

LCC will have one more regular-season game after Saturday, against Grand Rapids Community College on Monday, May 6 at home.