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Gladstone To Play For State Title; Cubs Stay Alive
 GLADWIN---There is a better than fair chance that a Delta County American Legion baseball team will win a state championship for the first time since 1955. There's just three teams left in the Class A American Legion State Tournament, and two of them are the Gladstone Indians and Escanaba Cubs. And they could meet each other. The Indians used the shutout pitching of Jake Peterson to post as 7-0 win over the host Gladwin Lightning Friday night. That result followed Escanaba's gritty performances in the loser's bracket, after the Cubs had lost 14-5 to Petoskey on Friday. First, the Cubs got revenge for last year's loss in the state championship game by beating Hudson, 6-1, as Tyler Skufca pitched a strong game. Then the Cubs rallied from two runs down to score six unanswered runs and beat Petoskey, 10-6. Paybacks indeed. The big inning for the Cubs against Hudson was in the bottom of the third, as the Cubs left fielder Lewis Ostrander led off the inning with a walk. Center fielder David Falish followed him with a single. Nick Vandermissen singled with runners on second and first and then Skufca brought in Ostrander from third base. Bailey Lamb brought in Vandermissen from third with a sacrifice fly to center field and Hunter LaMarch followed him with an RBI single. Escanaba scored two more in the top of the fourth after a two RBI single by Brandon Punzel scored Dave Falish and Nick Vandermissen.  In Escanaba's second game against the Petoskey Royals, some timely hits and stellar relief from Brandon Punzel fueled the Cubs to a 10-6 victory. A slow start for the Cubs allowed Petoskey to jump out to a 5-2 lead after the first two innings, but Punzel came in to relieve Justin Popelka in the third and didn't leave the mound for the rest of the game. A two run innings and two three run innings propeled the Cubs to make a comeback and put themselves into the third place game on Saturday morning. Two RBI singles by Devin Olsen and Sean Bissell in the third inning started the comeback. In the fifth, a wild pitch scored Lewis Ostrander from third base and the overthrow from the Petoskey catcher to home plate allowed Falish to score from second. A bases loaded walk by Nick Vandermissen scored another run for the Cubs and gave them the lead. The winning pitcher for the Escanaba Cubs was Brandon Punzel, who went five innings giving up one run on five hits while striking out five and walking two. For the Indians, Peterson was the difference, as he had the Gladwin batters off-balance for most of the night. And the Indians took advantage of some Lightning errors to get the early lead. Indians catcher Hunter Garling led off the top of the third inning with a triple to left center, and he scored on a wild pitch. Gladstone added to their lead in the fourth fifth and sixth innings as well. In the top of the fourth Sam Pouliot and Jake Peterson walked back to back. A single by Ben Schwalbach and then an error by the Gladwin shortstop allowed a run to score. Christian Tackman followed with an RBI single.  Gladstone added three more runs in the sixth inning as Schwalbach and Tackman led off with walks, a sacrifice by Justin Jurek put them both into scoring position, and Garling came through with a big two RBI single to make the score 6-0. Garling then stole second base, and Jake Pearson scored him from second on a single. The winning pitcher for Gladstone was Jake Peterson, he went all seven innings, allowing no runs on four hits striking out nine with two walks. On Saturday, Escanaba will face Gladwin at 11:00 a.m. The game will be broadcast live over the Internet ONLY for the first hour at www.rrnsports.com. Then, at 12:00, the broadcast will be joined on WCHT-AM (600). The winner of that game will then face Gladstone at 2:00. That game will be broadcast live on WCHT-AM (600) and on www.rrnsports.com. Click the thumbnails in the ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS box to see photos. |
