By Deann Davidson

Mequon, WI – In their home opener, the Lakeshore Chinooks faced the Wisconsin Woodchucks in the first of two games. Despite strong pitching, the Chinooks were unable to produce on offense and lost the game 1-0.

Chinooks’ starter Parker Coyne faced the minimum in the first inning, striking out two. In the bottom of the first, the Chinooks had the chance to score thanks to a single through the gap for Jake Thompson and a blooper to right for Ross Messina, but the inning remained scoreless.

Coyne went toe-to-toe with Woodchucks’ Myles Gayman until the top of fourth inning when Wisconsin’s Nate Stinson hit an infield single past Coyne and then stole second, putting him in scoring position. Zach Klapak then hit a sacrifice fly to Austin Murr which allowed Stinson to score from third on a wild pitch, giving the Woodchucks a 1-0 lead over the Lakeshore Chinooks.

In the top of the fifth, Sean O’Brien relieved Coyne and had an efficient inning, catching two pop-outs in foul territory. O’Brien pitched 2 2/3 innings for the Chinooks, but was relived by Parker Kirkpatrick after getting into a bases loaded, two-out jam in the top of the seventh. Kirkpatrick got a groundout to third, ending the inning without any damage.

Going into the seventh inning, the Chinooks once again created traffic after Jake Olson reached on an error by the second baseman, followed by a walk to Trent Bauer. However, Lakeshore was unable to capitalize and stranded two runners.

Will Klein relieved Kirkpatrick in the top of the ninth and struck out the side, leaving the Chinooks with three outs to erase the one-run deficit. Woodchucks’ reliever Nolan Lebamoff gave up a leadoff walk to Murr. Griffin Doersching struck out and Murr was caught stealing second. Olson also struck out swinging, ending the game with a final score of 1-0.

When asked about his strong relief appearance that kept the Chinooks in the game, O’Brien said, “I trusted my pitches and didn’t baby them. I know that I’m good enough to play here and I’m going to go out there and prove it.”

The Wisconsin Woodchucks improve to 3-0 and the Lakeshore Chinooks drop to 1-2. Game Two of this series will take place tomorrow night at 6:35 p.m. at Kapco Park.

The Lakeshore Chinooks are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. The Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 22 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff, over 200 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champions Ben Zobrist (CHC) and Brandon Crawford (SFG) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET) and Curtis Granderson (TOR).  All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit  www.lakeshorechinooks.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Chinooks as your favorite team.