Gladstone Walks Off Norway; Kingsford Beats Esky

Click the thumbnails to see photos and videos, and hear post-game comments from Gladstone's Jaxsyn Lancour and Manager Mike Sanville, and Kingsford manager Brent Buschcuski. Also hear the radio call of Lancour's walk-off hit.

ESCANABA---The Gladstone Major Little League All-Stars (age 11-12) got a walk-off base hit from Jaxsyn Lancour and beat the Norway All-Stars, 3-2, Wednesday night.

Then Kingsford used a five-run fourth inning to eliminate Escanaba, 6-3.

The Gladstone-Norway game was tight all evening long, with Lancour, in the #9 hole, coming through with the clutch base hit.

He roped a shot down the left field line that landed just barely fair, bringing home Logan DeMay.

DeMay was safe on an error with one out in the bottom of the sixth inning, then Austin Loehr drew a walk. Asher Sargent was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Norway pitcher Tyler Sternhagen was down to his final pitches, but was allowed to throw to Lancour.

"I thought they were going to change pitchers," Lancour said. "But, no! He put a strike on me, first pitch. Second pitch, I just turned on it. It was THIS far from going foul. I'm really happy that it stayed fair. I don't know what I would have done if it went foul."

"It was a hard line drive, I mean, past me (coaching at third)," Gladstone Manager Mike Sanville said. "I mean, it was so close, I could have hit it with my hand as it went by. But I could see it was going to be fair, sometimes you can just tell. It was an excellent hit."

Norway grabbed a 1-0 lead in the second inning when Colton Lord and Landon DeBakket got back-to-back singles to lead off against Gladstone pitcher Nick Proehl.

Jake Hosking followed with a fielder's choice grounder to bring home the run, and Norway still had two on with no outs. But Gladstone got a huge out at the plate when DeBakker tried to score on a wild pitch, and then Proehl got the final two outs of that inning.

Gladstone scored two runs in the bottom of the second inning to take the lead. Landon Pepin led off with a double, and scored on an RBI single by DeMay. DeMay eventually scored on a wild pitch. Sternhagen walked two more batters that inning, but got out of trouble.

In the fifth inning, it looked like Norway might take control when Proehl walked the first two men he faced. With one out, Remi Buchanan smacked an RBI single to tie the game. Proehl, however, got the #2 and #3 Norway hitters on a strikeout and a pop up to keep it 2-2.

"For 12 year-olds to hold it together, under that kind of pressure," Sanville said. "Shout out to Norway for always being there, always competing. Our boys held it together. You know, 3-2, in 11-12 baseball, it's just an excellent baseball game to watch. To have these crowds supporting the boys, it's just great."

Proehl was maxed out on his 85 pitches after five innings, allowing two runs on three hits and three walks, with seven strikeouts. An unsung hero is Sholten, who threw a 1-2-3 top of the sixth inning for Gladstone to give the team the chance to win in the bottom half.

Sternhagen threw a complete game (five-plus innings) for Norway, allowing four hits.

Norway will take on Kingsford in a loser's bracket game Thursday night. That game has been moved from Escanaba and will be played at Norway's Marion Park. Gladstone will play the winner in the district championship game Friday night in Escanaba. That game is scheduled to start at 6:00 ET/5:00 CT.

KINGSFORD 6, ESCANABA 3---In an elimation game, the Kingsford All-Stars scored five runs in the fourth inning to stun Escanaba and eliminate the home team.

Escanaba scored two runs in the top of the first inning when Griffin Johnson beat out an infield hit, stole two bases, and scored on a ground ball by Connor Asgaard. Timmy Robitaille drew a walk and eventually scored on a wild pitch to make it 2-0, but Kingsford pitcher Dominic Fredrickson settrled down from there.

Kingsford had trouble hiiting Johnson until the fourth inning when things changed.

Escanaba made two errors on the infield, Kingsford had a couple of perfectly-placed infield base hits, and then they got a couple of hard-hit base hits to bring home runs. One of them was a rope by Logan McCoy, and then with two out, Carson Chrisman smoked an RBI double and Drew Tomasoski followed with a run-scoring hit to left field.

All of sudden, Kingsford led, 5-2, and the outcome was pretty much sealed in the sixth inning when Escanaba had the first two men on and Asgaard ripped a shot to right field. Promise Setner dove and made an outstanding catch. Escanaba got one run later in the inning on a wild pitch, but the Kingsford boys bounced back from Tuesday's loss to stay alive.

"The kids were confident, finally," Kingsford Manager Brent Buchcuski said. "We had a team get-together last night and talked to them all, and just kind of said. you guys are all All-Stars, you're capable of hitting the ball. So, be confident when you get up to the plate. And finally tonight, we were down 2-0, 2-0, 2-0, we finally busted it open. Tonight, we actually hit the ball hard, got runners on, and moved them around the bases."

Fredrickson had two innings where he threw only six and eight pitches, respectively, and that helped him barely be able to throw all six innings on the 85 pitch-count. He allowed only three base hits, issued three walks, and struck out seven Escanaba batters.

"Dominic was dealing tonight," Buchcuski said. "He's one of our stud pitchers. I went out there in the third inning and he had 35 pitches, and you're at that threshold where you take him out or not. And he said, 'I want to finish this game'. How do you argue with that?"

Kingsford will face Norway in a loser's bracket game Thursday night. That game has been moved from Escanaba and will be played at Norway's Marion Park.