Beau Brodina and Lucas Lyons hit their first home runs of the season, but the Lake Region State College baseball team dropped all four games to Miles Community College over the weekend.
Softball went 0-4 as well.
Both teams competed on Saturday and Sunday in Miles City, Mont.
Baseball
LRSC was swept by second-place MCC (24-13, 10-2). The Royals are now 7-28 overall and 1-7 in conference play. That still puts them in fourth place out of six teams in the Mon-Dak, as North Dakota State College of Science and Dakota College at Bottineau are yet to win a conference game.
The two winless teams still await LRSC on its schedule.
The Royals’ closest game of the series this past weekend was the opener on Saturday. It was a near-comeback that they lost 10-7.
They trailed 8-0 after four innings, with a pair of three-spots. LRSC scored one in the fifth and six in the sixth to get back in it.
Brodina had an RBI single that got the Royals on the board. The sixth-inning rally included a hit by pitch, a Donnovin Viorentino single and back-to-back walks from Brodina and Lyons — all with the bases loaded.
LRSC was set down 1-2-3 in the seventh as it fell just short.
The Royals lost the remaining three games by double-digit margins: 13-3, 12-1 and 14-2.
Recent Devils Lake alum Hunter Remmick, who’s had a few nice outings this season, got tagged for seven runs over 2 1/3 innings in the 13-3 game, which ended in five innings due to the run rule. Fellow Firebird Trason Beck went 2-for-2 at the plate.
Brodina homered in the third inning of Sunday’s first game. It turned out to be LRSC’s only run of the game.
It was the first bomb of Brodina’s career at the college level. It was also his first extra-base hit this season. He hit four doubles last year as a freshman. Brodina has been leading off for the Royals this year; his batting line sits at .264/.435/.299.
In the first inning of Sunday’s nightcap, Brodina reached on an error and Lyons followed with a two-run homer. It was Lyons’ first of the season and fifth of his career. Lyons has heated up lately, raising his batting line to .280/.380/.402. He had a fantastic freshman season last year, collecting 13 extra-base hits with a .295/.450/.473 line.
Up 2-1 after an inning, LRSC wound up surrendering a crooked number of runs in each of the remaining four innings.
The Royals’ starting pitchers combined to give up 24 runs over 11 innings throughout the four-game series.
Dane Hagler got some at-bats this weekend; he DH’ed in the first two games, played first base in the third game and did not play in the fourth game. Hagler had a lingering injury from basketball season that forced him to sit out the early part of baseball season. He still has not returned to the mound in a game.
The Royals have now put the top two teams in the Mon-Dak behind them. Tuesday’s non-conference slate against Jamestown JV was canceled; LRSC is scheduled to face NDSCS (7-15, 0-8) Wednesday on the road, then third-place Dawson Community College (17-27, 10-2) Saturday at home.
The home-opening doubleheader has a noon start time on Saturday. Weather permitting, of course.
Softball
The Royals (4-26, 0-8) got swept by first-place MCC (21-15, 9-3) and have now lost 16 games in a row.
They recorded just one hit in the opener, losing 8-0. They put up a five-run third inning in the nightcap, but it wasn’t enough to overcome MCC’s four in the first, four in the second and six in the fifth, as LRSC lost 15-7. The Royals were outhit 19-5 and made three errors.
Sunday started with another 8-0 loss, with LRSC collecting three hits.
LRSC’s closest bid happened to have the same score as the baseball team’s closest game: a 10-7 loss to finish the series. Down 7-0 in the fourth, the Royals put up a seven-spot to tie it up.
But they didn’t score again.
LRSC allowed three runs in the seventh.
Starter Tristin McTavish was in the circle the entire way.
Alexa Ferguson, Sadie Mason, Kaell Klisowsky and Annabelle Ocampo all had multi-hit performances in an 11-hit attack by the Royals.
LRSC moves on to face NDSCS (33-6, 6-2) on Wednesday before returning to home to play DCC (20-13, 5-4) on Saturday.
Leave a Reply