Cubs Split; Finish 4th In UP Zone Five Tournament

HANCOCK---The Escanaba Cubs American Legion Baseball team had an emotional walk-off 5-4 victory over the Marquette Blues on Saturday before the season came to an end with a 14-4 loss to the Copper Country Flames.

The Cubs stayed alive in the Zone Five U.P. Tournament with a game that had been scheduled to be played Friday night, but wasn't, because of darkness.

Against Marquette, Johnny Schlenvogt used every pitch he had coming to him on his tournament pitch count to keep the Cubs in the game. He was relieved by Sam Hall.

It was a 4-4 tie after seven innings, so the international tiebreaker rule was used, giving each team a runner on second base to start the inning. The Blues loaded the bases with no outs in the top of the eighth inning, but Hall worked out of the jam.

In the bottom of the inning, Cody Frappier was put on second base.

Noah Lancour was supposed to safety squeeze Frappier home from third base, but he missed the sign and swung away. It worked out as he smacked a base hit to left field to win the game, eliminating the Blues and keeping the Cubs alive.

The Cubs were back on the field late in the afternoon against the host team in a game to determine who would advance to the state tournament.

Hall was back on the mound, too, with 100 pitches to work with. Unfortunately, Hall used 42 of those pitches in the first inning as the Flames hit him hard.

A couple of errors on the infield didn't help, either, and when the inning ended, Copper Country was ahead, 9-0.

Logan Fish and Hans Stimac had back-to-back RBI doubles in that inning.

The Flames scored three more runs in the second inning, and Hall was replaced by Zeke Strand on the mound. Strand got the final out of that inning, and despite giving up a triple to Bryan Lepisto in the third, he got through that inning unscathed.

Escanaba tried to rally against the Flames bullpen, with an unearned run in the third inning and three runs in the fifth. The runs in the top of the fifth extended the season for the Cubs, with Justin Popelka ripping a two-run triple up the gap to make it 12-4.

But in the bottom of the fifth, Bailey Ribich ended it with a two-run double.

Copper Country beat Menominee, 6-4, on Sunday to earn second place in the U.P. tournament. The Flames will face defending state champion Hudson in the first state tournament game in Gladwin Thursday morning at 9 a.m.

Click the thumbnails in the ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS above to see a video of Lancour's walk-off hit, plus photos taken by Sheila Olsen.