Bounce back win for Lakers AA
By KATIE BROWN
The Daily Inter Lake
The Kalispell Lakers AA bounced back after a tough weekend, beating the Mission Valley Mariners A 9-1 at Griffin Field on Wednesday in American Legion baseball nonconference play.
On Sunday, the Lakers lost both games of a doubleheader to the Missoula Mavericks AA.
“I thought the kids responded well after the last couple days of practice and we got some innings on the mound that we needed to,” Lakers coach Ryan Malmin said. “Offensively, we’re in a little bit of a funk in terms of our approach and could do a better job of being more aggressive on the fastball, but all in all it was good to get back on the field and get back in on the winning ways.”
Randy Stultz got the Lakers (16-4) started on the right track with a leadoff double in the first inning. He took advantage of an error on the next pitch and scored the Lakers’ first run. Stultz also homered in the fifth and went 2 for 4 at the plate, with two RBI.
During Taylor Morton’s first at-bat, Ryan Symmes stole a base and then ran all the way home for a 2-0 Lakers lead at the bottom of the first.
The Lakers had bases loaded in the third with two outs, but were only able to drive home one run.
In the fourth, Symmes slid home during the three-run inning.
It was a shutout until Mission scored its only run in the fifth. The Mariners had four hits and three errors.
The Lakers had nine runs on nine hits with one error. Jack Corriveau pitched four innings.
“Aside from the one (defensive) mistake I think we were pretty clean throughout,” Malmin said. “It was good. It’s a good stepping stone to get back in conference on Saturday in Great Falls.”
Logan Siblerud doubled, Connor Drish had two hits and one RBI. Morton had two RBI.
The Lakers return to conference play in Great Falls, beginning Saturday at 5 p.m.
“They (Great Falls) got a lot of kids back from last year,” Malmin said. “Even though their numbers are small, they’ve got a fairly veteran group. It’ll be a battle for us. We’ll have to come out and compete, keep approaching it the way we have the last couple of weeks and hopefully we can get out of this funk a little bit and get back to what we were a couple weeks ago. We have nine of our first 12 conference games on the road. We need to do a better job of getting off the bus and being ready to go from the first pitch.”
Mission 000 010 0 — 1 4 3
Kalispell 201 321 x — 9 9 1
WP — Jack Corriveau, Taylor Morton (4), Kobe Burland (5)
LP — n/a
MISSION — Xavier Fisher 1-4, Espn Fisher 1-4, Eric Dolene 0-4. Full team statistics not available.
KALISPELL —Randy Stultz 2-4, Ryan Symmes 0-4, Burland 1-4, Morton 1-4, Luke Halland 0-4, Corriveau 1-4, Jonathan Craver 0-3, Logan Siblerud 1-4, Connor Drish 2-4, Ryan Galvan 1-1.
2B — Siblerud, Stultz; HR — Stultz; RBI — E. Fisher; Stultz (2), Burland, Morton (2), Corriveau, Drish.