Click the thumbnails to see photos and videos from both games, and for comments from Marinette's Jake Farley and Menominee Manager John Lauzer.
MARINETTE---The annual Firecracker American Legion Baseball Tournament got under way on Friday in Marinette, and both of the Upper Peninsula's teams took losses.
The Escanaba Cub s lost to Marinette, 6-1, as Jake Farley threw six innings of no-hit ball. Levi Hanson came in to toss the seventh inning to complete the no-hitter.
Earlier, the Menominee Red Wave hung with the Watertown team, trailing just 7-5 in the fourth inning. But the errors started piling up, and when Menominee starting pitcher Garrett Carlson ran out of pitches, the flood gates opened in a 15-5 loss.
Escanaba started Cannon Arnt on the mound, and pulled him after throwing 50 pitches. But the rule is a maximum of 45 pitches thrown to be able to throw again on Sunday, so Arnt, unable to pitch again on Saturday or Sunday, returned to the mound to finish out his allowed pitches. He ended up throwing 82 pitches and was charged with two runs on four hits in 4 1/3 total innings.
Ashton Rymkos relieved Arnt and also allowed two runs before being pulled after throwing 42 pitches. Blake Veeser then threw 25 pitches and also allowed two runs.
Meanwhile, Escanaba had no baserunners in the first three innings, but did manage to get seven runners in the next three innings: two on walks, three on hit batters, and two on errors. The Cubs' only run came in the fourth inning when Graham Johnson was hit by a pitch, and he scored when Marinette made two throwing errors on the same play.
Anderson slugged a solo home run in the first inning for Marinette (8-2-1).
The closest Escanaba came to getting a base hit was Joey Garcia's rocket down the left field line with a man in scoring position. It went two feet foul, and he struck out on the next pitch. The Cubs had 12 batters strike out, ten of them by Farley, who threw 107 pitches. Hanson threw 17 pitches to get the three outs in the seventh inning.
Escanaba fell to 3-4-0 on the season with the loss.
In the earlier game, Menominee fell behind Waterwtown, 2-0, in the first inning, but scored four runs in the second inning to go ahead, 4-2.
The first run came in when Jax Jasenovsky put down a nice bunt and it was thrown away, allowing Aiden Beal, who had singled to start the inning. Nate Nelson's RBI single tied the game, and then Tyler Bouty's sacrifice fly put the Red Wave ahead.
The fourth run scored when Robert Finger's infield pop up was dropped with a man in third base. Menominee's 4-2 lead didn't last, though, because Watertown scored twice in the bottom of the inning on a Hayden Doede sacrifice fly and a single by Connely Cashin.
The Red Wave gave up three more runs in the third inning to fall behind, 7-4. Owen Wegner and Xavier Gentz both had RBI doubles in that inning. Menominee got to within 7-5 in the fourth inning when Finger doubled home Carlson, but Watertown scored seven straight runs to send the Red Wave to the loss.
Menominee's record fell to 2-5 on the season. There were eight errors in the game between the two teams.
