AA Lakers win nightcap with Mavs
MISSOULA — Thomas O’Connell had four hits and drove in five runs and the Kalispell AA Lakers broke open a 2-2 game, then made an 11-run lead hold up for a 14-11 Legion baseball victory late Wednesday.
The game was a doubleheader nightcap; Missoula edged the Lakers 9-8 in the first game — Kalispell’s third straight 1-run loss to open the conference season. In the late game the Mavs outhit the Lakers 14-7 but Kalispell took advantage of 13 walks and four hit batters issued by Missoula’s pitchers.
The Lakers (19-6 overall, 1-3 in league) sent 11 men to the plate in the fifth inning and 12 in the sixth. In the fifth O’Connell worked an RBI single in among four walks and three HBPs. One HBP scored Danny Kernan, who’d walked; Kernan was dotted with the bases loaded in the same inning to force in another run and make it 7-2.
Five more walks were issued in the sixth, when the lead grew to 14-3. O’Connell supplied a 2-run single, and Kael Willis socked a bases-loaded triple.
O’Connell’s 2-run single put the Lakers up for good, 4-2, in the fourth.
Missoula put up a couple crooked numbers at the end. Henry Black’s RBI double sparked a 4-run sixth, which included a 2-run single by Charlie Kirgan. Kirgan then hit a 2-run triple in the seventh, and scored the game’s final run on Bridger Johnson’s single with two out.
Ayden Driear got the win for the Lakers, pitching 5-plus innings and scattering eight hits and three walks. He struck out two, and five of his six runs allowed were earned.
The Lakers’ next action is at the Northwest Premier/PSC Invitational, straddling the Idaho-Washington border.
Friday they begin pool play against the Reign at 8 p.m.; Saturday they take on the Spokane Cannons at 2 p.m., and Lakeside Recovery at 4 p.m. Sunday at 9 a.m. they take on Expos Blue-Webb. All four games are in Medical Lake, Washington.
The two finishers in each 6-team pool then enter a single-elimination backet that begins at 3:30 p.m. Mountain.
Lakers AA 000 257 0 - 14 7 1
Missoula 101 014 4 - 11 14 2
Ayden Driear, Danny Kernan (6) and Grady Drish. Eamon Higgins, Henry Black and Mike Prather.
KALISPELL LAKERS AA — Thomas O’Connell 4-5, Joseph Schlegel 1-4, Ethan Diede 0-4, Kernan 0-2, Kostya Hoffman 0-3, Kael Willis 2-4, Max Holden 0-2, Grady Drish 0-2, Devon Wallack 0-2, Brink 0-1.
MISSOULA — Adam Jones 2-4, Black 3-4, Skye Palmer 0-5, Charlie Kirgan 3-5, Bridger Johnson 2-5, Conner Jordan 0-1, Nick Beem 2-3, Zack Hangas 0-4, Prather 1-4, Dayton Bay 1-2.
2B — Black 2, Beem, Prather. 3B — Willis, Kirgan. RBI — O’Connell 5, Willis 3, Kernan 2, Schlegel, Diede, Drish, Kirgan 4, Palmer 2, Beem 2, Black, Johnson.