The Lake Region State College baseball team’s season came to an anticlimactic end.
The Royals (12-37) were run-ruled twice to lose a playoff series against Miles Community College (29-18) in Miles City, Mont., on Saturday. They combined to give up 40 runs in just eight defensive innings.
The scores were 19-3 and 21-6. Both games were done in five innings.
The Pioneers scored in every inning in which they batted. All nine Royals pitchers allowed at least one run.
LRSC came out in an immediate hole in the first game, giving up five in each of the first two innings. Dane Hagler, making his second start of the season after working back from injury, surrendered nine hits in 1 1/3 innings. A leadoff error in the first made three of the 10 runs he gave up unearned.
MCC recorded five consecutive hits in the second inning, including a three-run homer that rubbed salt in the Royals’ already aching wound. That made it 10-0.
Hagler threw 48 pitches (28 strikes) in his final outing as a Royal. He struck out one and walked one.
Kade Maryniuk was the first man out of the bullpen. He had trouble with the strike zone, throwing just 19 of his 42 pitches for strikes. He walked four in two innings, allowing three runs (two earned). He did hold MCC without a hit.
Logan Enns allowed two of Maryniuk’s inherited walks to score. The Pioneers poured it on for eight runs in the fourth inning. Nine consecutive batters reached, which included seven consecutive hits. One of the hits was a two-run homer.
Enns faced five batters and all of them scored.
Jack Albert eventually finished the inning. He made an error — one of four by the Royals — that loaded the bases, but then induced a 3-0 popup to end the frame.
LRSC scored all three of its runs in the fourth. Jax Yakiwchuk hit an RBI single, and Dayton Christensen hit a two-out, two-run triple.
The Royals were outhit 16-5.
In the second game, LRSC went with Hunter Remmick hoping to keep its season alive. Remmick was the Royals’ best starting pitcher this season.
The first two batters against Remmick singled. The third homered.
It was 3-0 three batters into the inning.
Remmick allowed another homer in the frame but eventually got out of it with LRSC trailing 4-0.
The Royals opted to pull Remmick there, after just 21 pitches. The bullpen proceeded to give up two runs in the second, 13 in the third and two in the fourth.
Yakiwchuk allowed five runs over 1 1/3 innings. Ashton Rinas allowed four in 1/3 of an inning. Dayton Christensen allowed six runs (five earned) in 1/3 of an inning.
The Pioneers scored nine of their 13 third-inning runs with two outs. After a hit by pitch and a walk with the bases loaded earlier in the inning, LRSC permitted a three-run homer before seven additional consecutive baserunners.
MCC totaled 18 hits, including nine in the third inning. The Pioneers hit four homers in four innings.
LRSC had six hits — three of which were by star outfielder Lucas Lyons. He got the Royals on the board with a two-out RBI single in the top of the third.
An MCC two-run homer in the bottom of the fourth made it 21-1.
The Royals scored five runs in the fifth, but still lost by run rule. Beau Brodina led off the final frame of the day with a hit by pitch, and Lyons drove him in with a single. Two runs scored on an error.
With LRSC down to its last out, Isaiah Uecker drew a bases-loaded walk, and another run scored on a wild pitch to make it 21-6. Brodina kept the game alive with a walk — his second time reaching base in the inning — but Ty Cavers struck out to end the contest.
The Royals have now played two seasons under head coach Steve Anderson. In 2025, they set a program record with 11 conference wins. That number fell to five this season.
The program has still made strides from the one that went 0-29 in 2022.
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