Baseball: Freshman Chemics finish season with doubleheader loss

by Jason Wolverton

The Midland High freshman baseball team finished up its season Wednesday, dropping game one of a doubleheader against Mount Pleasant 9-4 before coming up short in game two 7-6.

In game one, the Chemics jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead before adding another in the second when Jacob Walters scored on a throwing error. But the Oilers would add a run in the third on an RBI double before tying things up and taking the lead in the fourth.

Mount Pleasant added three more in the fifth to make it 6-2 before starter Taylor Stockton was lifted in favor of Ben Singer. Singer surrendered a run of his own before getting a big double play to end the inning and get the Chemics out of a jam.

Midland got back on the board in the bottom half of the fifth when Keaton Frymier hit a two-out RBI single to left which was followed by an RBI single from Jake Gross to make it 7-4.

But the Oilers would add two more insurance runs in the seventh, and the Chemics were unable to answer as the Oilers finished them off.

Game two was a see-saw battle for both teams with the Oilers jumping out to a 2-0 lead before the Chemics answered with a Kevin Newcomb RBI single to cut it to one.

That’s when things started to get ugly for the Chemics, as a slew of errors and mental mistakes led to two more Oiler runs to make it 4-1. But the Chemics would respond once more when a triple from Gross and a sac fly turned error to right off the bat of Matt Meunier made it 4-3.

The Oilers would come right back, though, scoring three runs in a strange fifth inning that featured a lengthy delay following a questionable call from the home plate umpire. The call was the first of several disputed calls by the men in blue, something coach Kevin Dodick said could have affected his team.

“It’s learning experience for them and me,” Dodick said of playing through tough calls. “It gets in your head.”

Meunier would triple to give the Chemics another run before Eric Peterson came through with a big two-run single in the sixth to make it 7-6. The inning started for the Chemics when Matt Strickling hit a slow chopper to the mound that the pitcher fielded and tried to run to first instead of throw. But Strickling was hustling all the way out of the box and beat the pitcher there to get things going for Midland.

Newcomb would come in for Gross to pitch the seventh and keep the Oilers off the board, but Midland was unable get another run across.

After the game, Dodick said he was happy with the comeback attempt but frustrated with the need for it in the first place.

“I am encouraged but on the other hand it seems like all year we would fall down early in games,” he said. “They need to show up in the first couple of innings and not get down. If they would play like that from inning one, we’d have a lot more wins.”

Mount Pleasant won the season series against the Chemics, three games to two. Overall, Midland finished with a record of 10-6 on the year.