Bark River-Harris Baseball Closes Regular Season

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ESCANABA---The Bark River-Harris High School baseball team wrapped up its regular season Friday night with a 6-3 loss to the Escanaba Junior Varsity Eskymos at Al Ness Field.

Escanaba scored five runs in the fourth inning to break a 1-1 tie, and then held off the Broncos down the stretch. The Broncos used it as a tune-up for the district tournament, which will begin in the far-Eastern U.P. town of Rudyard on Tuesday afternoon.

"It was a very well-played ballgame on both sides," Broncos Manager Al Botwright said. "They had only one error, and I think we only had three. Not too many walks on either side. But I'm happy to get ina good tune-up in against Escanaba. We saw a couple of good pitchers right there (Ashton Rymkos. Zahn Anderson) that I think are going to be very comparable to what we're going to see over in Rudyard."

One area of concern was two big injuries for the Broncos, as Charlie Guenette took a fastball off of his elbow, and Jacob Mileski re-aggrivataed a nagging hamstring injury when he tried to beat out an infield hit. Both missed the final few innings of the game.

"I hope that we came out of this unscathed, for the most part," Botwright said. "Preliminary results are that they're going to be fine."

Ashton Rymkos and Brody Ison, both of whom are freshmen but have also played with the varsity Eskymos all season long, had back-to-back two-run base hits during that big Escanaba inning. Rymkos also threw the first 4 2/3 innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on three hits and four walks. He struck out six Bronco batters.

Anderson finished up, tossing the final 2 1/3 innings for the Eskymos, allowing two runs.

The Broncos also used two pitchers. Dom Langtagne threw 3 2/3 innings and allowed six runs (five earned) on five hits and three walks. He took the loss.

Dane Schmitt finished up, throwing 2 1/3 innings of relief. He was not charged with a run, and had two bases-loaded strike outs to end both of his innings. Escanaba stranded the bases jammed in both the fifth and sixth innings.

Bark River's Troy Johnson had an RBI single and run-scoring sacrifice fly in the loss.