Eskymos Outlast Knights In Baseball Home Opener

ESCANABA---It took a while, but the Escanaba Eskymos finally put away the Norway Knights in their baseball contest Wednesday night at Al Ness Field.

After stranding nine base runners in the first five innings and leading just 2-1, the Eskymos scored eight runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to win their home opener, 10-1. Justin Popelka pitched all seven innings for Escanaba, scattering four hits.

"We couldn't get critical hits at critical times," Escanaba Manager Kirk Schwalbach said. "We struggled like that in Wisconsin Dells (last weekend), too. Those are innings where you've got to make something happen. We got a couple of breaks tonight. They had five errors. It reminds me of the two games that we played down there."

Escanaba stranded the bases loaded in the second inning after scoring a run on an infield hit by Courage Krueger. After Norway tied it on an RBI single by Kevin Evosevich in the top of the third, the Eskymos scored an unearned run in the bottom half to go up, 2-1.

It stayed that way for three more innings despite lots of traffic on the bases from the Eskymos. They had one man thrown out at the plate and stranded two base runners in both the fourth and fifth innings.

But Popelka was strong enough on the mound to keep the Knights at bay. Norway did have a chance to tie in the top of the sixth when Evosevich got his second hit of the contest and stole second. But Justin Bal struck out, and Evosevich was picked off.

The Knights decided to Pitch by Committee, sending six boys to the mound...seven if you count Micah Wilson, who pitched on two different occassions in the game.

Escanaba put eight runs on the board in the bottom of the sixth on several walks, another hit by Krueger, and a two-run single through a drawn-in infield by Austin Willette.

Grant Lamarche and CJ Barron also had RBI hits during that inning.

More than enough for Popelka, who struck out ten batters and walked only one.

"Everything seemed to be working pretty good," Popelka said. "That's a good team, and I knew they were going to time the fastball pretty well, so I had to go a good job of mixing it up to keep them off-balance, and I was able to do that."

Escanaba improved to 2-2 on the season and will host Stephenson on Saturady afternoon at 1:00 ET. Norway fell to 3-1 and will have a make-up game Friday in Hermansville against North Central.

Click the thumbnails in the ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS box above to see photos and videos taken by Sandi Young, hear post-game radio interviews with Popelka and Coach Schwalbach, and listen to Willette's RBI base hit.