By Kevin Mackey

Mequon, WI – With the Chinooks fighting for their playoff lives each game for what’s left of the Northwoods League regular season, it’s do or die for the Chinooks with the Traverse City Pit Spitters back in town after the Major League Dreams Showcase in Madison on Tuesday. Despite a late comeback attempt by the Chinooks, the Pit Spitters edged out the Chinooks for the win.

With a playoff spot locked up, the Pit Spitters are coasting into the postseason as they look to make a run at the Northwoods League title.

Troy Black, a regular at third base, took the mound for his second start of the summer and entered today with a 0.77 ERA in five appearances for the Chinooks this summer. That didn’t bother the Pit Spitters as they got their offense going in the second inning with a leadoff double from Jake Wilson followed by a single from Ryan Hampe gave the Pit Spitters the early lead.

Michael Slaten got it going with another leadoff double to start the third and advanced to third on a balk. A one-out triple in the gap from Jake Wilson scored Slaten easily, and Jake Wilson scored when Daryl Myers committed an error on a groundball to give the Pit Spitters the 3-0 lead.

Traverse City’s offense kept it going as two-out hitting helped the Pit Spitters put three more runs on the board. With one on and two out, an error from Ronnie Sweeny III in right field scored another run followed by a walk put runners on first and second for Traverse City. Jake Wilson came up his third extra-base hit of the night two score more and gave the Pit Spitters the 6-0 lead.

After the Pit Spitters made the lead 8-0 in the top of the fifth, the Chinooks offense woke up and put runs of their own on the board. Cole Barr’s one-out, 2-run home run off the scoreboard served as a spark plug and got the Chinooks offense going. Back to back doubles from Trent Bauer and Griffin Doersching cut the lead to 8-3.

The Chinooks big inning came in the seventh as Ronnie Sweeny III’s double to leadoff the Chinooks four-run inning. Griffin Doersching’s two-RBI double scored Sweeny III and Myers. After a walk, Nathan Aide came up with a big triple in the gap that scored two more runs and cut the Pit Spitters lead to 8-7.

Michael Slaten silenced the crowd after a big Chinooks inning with a monstrous home run over the left-center wall.

Griffin Doersching led the charge in a late run for the Chinooks offense. Doersching went 3/3 with three doubles, 2 RBI’s, 2 runs scored, and a walk.

The Chinooks got their final at-bat in the bottom of the ninth. Lakeshore went down in order and fell to the Pit Spitters by the score of 9-7.

Lakeshore returns to Kapco Park to play host to the Green Bay Booyah tomorrow night at 6:35 PM.

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.