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Cubs Split; Make Semis For First Time Since 2008
 ESCANABA---It's not often that you get to the fifth inning of a baseball game and let a team beat you on the mercy rule. But that was the unique situation the Escanaba Cubs found themselves in Saturday night as they trailed Midland Berryhill, 9-0. The Cubs had shut out the Marquette Blues earlier in the day, 5-0, so they had a 2-1 record and had a chance to make the semifinals of the Gregg Johnson Memorial Tournament with either a win or a loss. Since Midland had already built a big lead, Cubs Manager Tom Ohman knew that he had to keep the score down to win on a tiebreaker.  Or do you let the game end at 9-0 and get to play on Sunday? Ohman chose the latter option, having his kids bunt and half-heartedly play the bottom of the fifth inning. And as a result, Escanaba finished in a three-way tie with Marquette and Chief Pontiac for second place in their pool. The Cubs ended up winning on the second tiebreaker, allowing 16 runs in the four pool play games. Chief Pontiac yielded 18 runs and Marquette allowed 19. "I've never been in that position before," said Ohman, who has coached the Cubs for the past 32 summers. "It's kind of weird that you lose 9-0 and you're happy. We just had to get out of here, and we finally made it to Sunday." The tournament, formerly known as the Delta County Jaycees Invitational, brings together the best teams from across Wisconsin and Michigan. The last time the Cubs made it out of pool play was in 2008, when the tournament had 12 teams and the top six made it to Sunday. That year, Escanaba beat Gladstone in a Sunday morning game, 6-4, and then lost to Midland, 11-0, in the semifinals. 
Jeffry Lyle camps under a fly ball.
"It's pretty awesome because we haven't done that in a while," Cubs junior Bailey Lamb said. "It's gonna be nice to play on Sunday and see what we can do." Lamb was a big part of the Cubs being able to make it to the semifinals because he pitched two innings after Midland had taken a 7-0 lead. Lamb did not allow a run in the fourth inning, and held Midland to two runs in the fifth inning. "It was fastball, curveball," Lamb smiled. "That's all I was throwing. I threw one change-up and it went a little high, so we stuck with the fastball and curveball." "That was his job," Ohman said. "Bailey got us there." Midland Berryhill (8-0) hit the ball hard and took advantage of four Cubs errors during a messy second inning in which the visitors scored four times and took a 5-0 lead. At that point, it was obvious that the Cubs would not win the game, so it was a matter of stopping the bleeding and making sure that Midland would not score eleven runs. 
Bailey Lamb races to first after hitting a double Saturday. Jon Bintner coaches.
Berryhill made the Cubs pay with RBI hits from Tanner Gross and Chase Kreger. In the third inning, Alex Goodwin had a two-run double off of reliever Alex Ruatti, and then Kreger had a two-run double in the fifth inning off of Lamb. Escanaba (3-5) got just two hits off of Midland's tall lefty Brian Feinauer. David Falish had a two-out double in the third inning and Punzel had a lead-off hit in the fourth. Earlier in the day, the Cubs picked up a 5-0 win over the Marquette Blues. Devin Olsen threw a complete game, scattering four base hits over seven innings. Those were the only baserunners that Marquette had in the entire game, as Olsen issued no walks. "The change-up was really good today," Olsen said. "I don't know how, but it came through today. The curveball, once in a great while." 
Devin Olsen catches a pop fly as Bailey Lamb backs him up Saturday evening.
"That was awesome," Olsen said. "That's never happened before." "Devo just pitched a great game," Ohman said. "He pitched a lot like Ben (Kleiman) did down in Green Bay last week (a 3-0 win over Marinette). That was a performance that we needed out of Devo. That saved us. Devo and Bailey got us here." Escanaba scored three runs in the second inning as Lamb doubled and advanced on a perfect bunt single by Nick Vandermissen. Sean Bissell came through with an RBI single, and then Tim Lueneburg singled home the second run. Falish's RBI single made it 3-0, although a runner was thrown out at third base to end the second inning. In the fourth inning, Vandermissen ripped a double, got bunted to third by Hunter LaMarch, and then scored on a Bissell sacrafice fly. And in the sixth inning, Vandermissen singled and stole second and third. He scored on a sacrafice fly by Lueneburg. Escanaba had seven hits, three of them by Vandermissen. 
Tim Luneburg got down and dirty.
On Friday, the Cubs got a good pitching performance from Ben Kleiman, but the boys couldn't get him any offensive support and the Cubs lost to Chief Pontiac, 5-1. In the second game, the Sault Ste. Marie Black Sox scored in the top of the first inning, but the Cubs scored twice in the bottom of the inning to take the lead. Escanaba then added five runs in the second inning to go ahead 7-1, and eventually won the game, 10-2, when the game was stopped in the sixth inning on the eight-run mercy rule. Andrew Sedlar pitched the whole way for the Cubs, giving up four hits in six innings.
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| Date | Time | Opponent | Score | Record |
6/14 |
1:00 PM |
at Green Bay Shockers
|
1 - 11 (L)
|
0-1
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6/14 |
3:30 PM |
at Marinette Marines
|
3 - 0 (W)
|
1-1
|
6/15 |
12:30 PM |
at Ash-Port, Wis.
|
1 - 9 (L)
|
1-2
|
6/15 |
3:00 PM |
at Green Bay Shockers
|
8 - 17 (L)
|
1-3
|
6/21 |
5:30 PM |
Chief Pontiac
|
1 - 5 (L)
|
1-4
|
6/21 |
8:00 PM |
Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario) Black Sox
|
10 - 2 (W)
|
2-4
|
6/22 |
4:45 PM |
Marquette Blues
|
5 - 0 (W)
|
3-4
|
6/22 |
7:00 PM |
Midland Berryhill
|
0 - 9 (L)
|
3-5
|
6/23 |
10:00 AM |
Plover, Wis.
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1 - 2 (L)
|
3-6
|
6/25 |
8:00 PM |
Gladstone Indians
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0 - 3 (L)
|
3-7
|
6/29 |
12:00 PM |
Green Bay Blue Jays
|
6 - 7 (L)
|
3-8
|
6/29 |
6:30 PM |
Watertown Legion
|
1 - 0 (W)
|
4-8
|
6/30 |
11:30 AM |
Manitowoc Legion
|
1 - 11 (L)
|
4-9
|
7/3 |
6:00 PM |
at Gladstone Indians
|
1 - 3 (L)
|
4-10
|
7/5 |
6:30 PM |
at Marquette Blues
|
6 - 9 (L)
|
4-11
|
7/8 |
8:00 PM |
Menominee Red Wave Legion
|
10 - 0 (W)
|
5-11
|
7/12 |
2:00 PM |
Sudbury Ontario Legion
|
7 - 3 (W)
|
6-11
|
7/12 |
6:00 PM |
at Eastern U.P. Travelers
|
2 - 8 (L)
|
6-12
|
7/13 |
10:00 AM |
Alpena Wildcats
|
14 - 0 (W)
|
7-12
|
7/13 |
1:00 PM |
Petoskey Legion
|
2 - 4 (L)
|
7-13
|
7/14 |
10:00 AM |
at Eastern U.P. Travelers
|
1 - 9 (L)
|
7-14
|
7/20 |
2:00 PM |
Kingsford Legion Blues
|
10 - 3 (W)
|
8-14
|
7/24 |
1:00 PM |
Ishpeming Blue Storm
|
5 - 3 (W)
|
9-14
|
7/24 |
7:00 PM |
at Menominee Red Wave Legion
|
1 - 2 (L)
|
9-15
|
7/25 |
2:00 PM |
Eastern U.P. Travelers
|
2 - 1 (W)
|
10-15
|
7/27 |
11:00 AM |
Marquette Blues
|
7 - 5 (W)
|
11-15
|
7/27 |
1:00 PM |
Kingsford Legion Blues
|
4 - 1 (W)
|
12-15
|
7/27 |
5:00 PM |
Hancock Legion
|
5 - 2 (W)
|
13-15
|
7/28 |
12:00 PM |
Gladstone Indians
|
0 - 15 (L)
|
13-16
|
8/1 |
4:00 PM |
Ida Legion
|
7 - 0 (W)
|
14-16
|
8/2 |
6:00 PM |
at Hudson Legion
|
0 - 4 (L)
|
14-17
|
8/3 |
10:00 AM |
at Gladstone Indians
|
1 - 0 (W)
|
15-17
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8/3 |
12:00 PM |
Hudson Legion
|
3 - 4 (L)
|
15-18
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