Johnson Keys Escanaba Sweep Over SCUP Rangers

Click the thumbnails to see video highlights, and to hear interviews with both team's coaches and Cubs players Graham Johnson and Ashton Rymkos.

ESCANABA---Graham Johnson has turned in the golf clubs for the baseball bat, and the Escanaba Cubs American Legion baseball team is happy that he did.

Johnson is now cemented as the Cubs’ catcher after a dominating performance behind the plate in Escanaba’s 6-1 and 3-2 doubleheader sweep over the new South Central U.P. Rangers Monday night at Al Ness Field. Johnson threw out four baserunners, two of them at third base, as the Cubs improved to 6-0 in the first week of this summer season.

“I just came in with a good positive attitude and, you know, I didn’t know how it was going to go at first,” Johnson said. “I started off hot, feeling good right away, and it feels good to be playing good. We’ve been doing a good job of trying to get fastball, away. Speed things up to make my throw easier, and to make the tag easier for the guys (infielders).”

Johnson is playing his fourth sport in the last nine months (football, hockey, golf, baseball), and did not play for the Eskymo High School baseball team. But he hasn’t missed a beat, throwing out a total of ten baserunners in the Cubs’ first six games of this season.

“It’s quickness,” Cubs first-year manager Paul “Chopper” LaChance said. “He gets rid of the ball very fast. It’s glove to hand, gone. I don’t know what his pop time is, but it’s, I’m sure, it’s up there.”

And Johnson’s play behind the plate is appreciated by his pitchers.

“It’s fun, especially when I’m pitching,” said Ashton Rymkos, who was the winning pitcher in Monday’s opening game. It saves me some pitches, and I get to go into my wind-up and lets me pitch better.”

Johnson isn’t even the best catcher in the Escanaba baseball system, Mikaiden Hughes has caught the past two seasons for the Eskymo high school team, and was named to the Division Two All-State First Team on Monday. Hughes, a sophomore, is not playing Legion ball this summer.

The Cubs have won their first six games of the season despite scoring just 24 total runs, or four runs per game on average. Their opponents have managed a grand total of seven runs, or just over one run per game.

“The team is rolling,” Rymkos said. “It’s great to start 6-0. Defense is playing great, pitching is doing well, and Graham is playing great behind the plate. Our hitting is not the greatest right now. We’ve just got to warm up to it.”

In Monday’s opener, the Cubs scored three runs in the first inning on an RBI double by Adrian Mercier, an RBI single by Cannon Arnt, and two infield errors. Escanaba pulled off a double steal in the second inning, with Mercier stealing home, to make it 4-0.

Trent Kramer’s sacrifice fly brought in a run for the Rangers in the third inning, but the Cubs put it away with an RBI single by Max LeDuc in the third inning, and a wild pitch in the fifth inning.

The second game saw the Cubs manage only two base hits against four Ranger pitchers. But both of those hits, by Cannon Arnt and Isaiah Brow in the second inning, along with two walks, plated two runs to put the Cubs ahead 2-0. The Rangers tied it against Cubs pitcher Owen Fields with an RBI single by Kramer and an error on a ground ball.

The go-ahead run by the Cubs in the fifth inning came when Mercier walked, stole second, and scored on an error on a Bon LaChance grounder.

Eli Gardner earned the win in relief in the nightcap after he came on in the final inning of the opener and got three outs on three pitches.

The Cubs played Monday with only nine players, and the most they’ve had this year is eleven. LaChance is hoping that some other guys in the area decide to join the team now that the season is off to a good start.

“I’m hoping for a few more,” LaChance said. “I have until June 20th (this Friday, the deadline to be legally rostered).”

Numbers are not a problem for the new SCUP Rangers team, which is made up mostly of kids from the Bark River and Felch/Sagloa areas. Rangers Manager Mick Reynolds says they formed this team to give kids throughout the area a place to play, when no one community had enough kids to fill a team on their own.

“From age 13 to 19, we have 32 kids,” Reynolds said, as his team played their first-ever games as a program. “Our hope is that this new organization grows and we can draw in kids from even more schools. Just so there’s good representation of all ages in our organization. We have a kid from Carney and another from Crystal Falls. It’s a development thing.”
The SCUP Rangers are not playing under the American Legion banner in their first season this summer. They are playing in the new Michigan Veterans Baseball league, which most of what used to be U.P. legion teams are now involved in. Those teams all split off from Michigan American Legion this year because of objections of some of the rules that Legion enforces, especially at the state tournament level.

Reynolds, though, says his team just wants to play.

“We’re just looking for any games we can get a hold of,” he said. “There’s so few teams in the Central U.P. And with all of our kids having summer jobs, it’s hard to get them to travel very far.”

The core of the SCUP team is made up of Bark River-Harris and North Dickinson High School players, or those who have recently graduated, like Ethan Ives, Jake Mileski and Dane Schmitt from BR-H, and Brady Jungwirth, Trent and Spencer Kramer from North Dickinson.

The Cubs, meanwhile, are one of only three Upper Peninsula teams to still be playing actual American Legion Baseball. Ishpeming is the other in Class AA, and Kingsford is the only U.P. team registered in Class A.

The Cubs rely on the experience of three college players at the top of their batting order: Mercier (Lakeland), and Gardner and Bon LaChance (Bay College), along with help from two Manistique boys: Cooper Curtis and Brow, both of whom pitch.

The SCUP Rangers return to action on Wednesday night with a doubleheader against the defending state champion Post 44 Blue (Marquette-Negaunee). Game time is 5:00 ET/4:00 CT from Felch Field. The games will be broadcast live on FM-100.3 in Marquette and on FM-93.5 and AM-600 in Escanaba, and on-line at www.rrnsports.com.

As for the Cubs, they will host the annual Gregg Johnson Memorial Tournament this weekend. The field is much different than in past years, with only one other U.P. team (Kingsford) joining the Cubs, five Legion teams from Wisconsin, and one from Canada.

Escanaba’s first game is at 8:30 ET Friday night against the Sheboygan, Wis., A’s. It will be broadcast on FM-93.5 and AM-600 in Escanaba, and on-line at www.rrnsports.com.