Legion baseball: Ericksen rallies Lakers AA past Medicine Hat

by The Daily Inter Lake
| July 18, 2016 10:22 PM

Leif Ericksen belted his first home run of the season and threw three-sharp innings in relief to get the win as the Kalispell Lakers rallied past Medicine Hat 8-5 on Monday evening in AA American Legion baseball action at Griffin Field.

Ericksen’s homer, a two-run shot in the bottom of the fifth inning with two outs, tied the game at 5-all.

Kalispell scored three times in the bottom of the eighth to put the game away.

“It was good to see the kids persevere,” Lakers coach Ryan Malmin said.

“There was a lot of baseball left in a nine-inning game after being down 4-0.”

Ericksen had two hits along with Tiler Whiteaker and Patrick O’Connell.

O’Connell, Andrew Schleusner and Joe Broughton all doubled once while Whiteaker and Micah Benson had triples.

Whiteaker finished with three RBIs along with Jayson Combs.

Ericksen replaced starter Dawson Smith in the sixth inning. Ericksen allowed one hit, struck out two and walked none.

Kalispell (34-18 overall, 8-8 league) hosts Great Falls on Wednesday at 7 p.m. for a single nine-inning conference contest. The two teams play a doubleheader on Thursday starting at 5 p.m.

Medicine Hat 040 100 000 — 5 9 1

Kalispell 030 020 03x — 8 11 0

WP—Leif Ericksen; LP—Johnny Stark.

MEDICINE HAT — Ryan Fauth 1-3, Stark 0-4, Brendan Kuhn 1-4, Intek Hong 0-3, Ethan Ropcean 1-4, Cam Geiger 2-4, Alex Andres 3-4, Braydon Pudwell 1-3, Riley McDonnell 0-4.

KALISPELL — Tiler Whiteaker 2-4, Jacob Halland 0-3, Logan DeCock 0-1, Patrick O’Connell 2-4, Andrew Schleusner 1-3, Ericksen 2-5, Micah Benson 1-3, Spencer Pisk 1-3, Joe Broughton 1-2, Jayson Combs 1-3.

2B—Fauth, Ropcean, Geiger; O’Connell, Schleusner, Broughton; 3B—Whiteaker, Benson; HR—Ericksen; RBIs—Fauth, Stark, Geiger, Pudwell (2); Whiteaker (3), Ericksen (2), Combs (3).