Fond du Lac, WI—The Lakeshore Chinooks split Saturday’s doubleheader with the Fond du Lac Spiders by dropping game one, 8-0, in seven innings, and taking game two, 9-7, in ten innings. 

It was a wild and crazy six and a half hour day of baseball that culminated in the team happily engorging some lukewarm hot dogs at 11:30 pm as they shuffled their way to the team bus. But, even with more baseball looming—an early game at 1:35 tomorrow— the overall morale was jubilant following an extra-innings game two victory on a walk-off, error aided single by Chinook newcomer, Matt Burch. 

Recapping the days' action, game one kicked off at 5:05 and the Chinooks almost immediately found themselves behind the eight ball. Starting pitcher, Sam Lund, gave up two singles to lead-off the bottom of the first and the inning only got rougher from there. After the dust settled, Lund surrendered five earned runs and ended his day far sooner than he’d planned.

On the other side of the ball, the Chinook bats were silenced by Dock Spider starter, Jon Mierzwa, who struck out 7 (5 looking) and only gave up one hit in a strong four innings. The Fond du Lac bullpen carried his momentum through the rest of the game and completed the first shutout in Dock Spider team history. Granted, it is their first year as a franchise. 

Simply put, game one was a clean 8-0 shutout that ended in under two hours. 

Game two is where the wild and crazy came into play. In the top of the first, the Chinooks put up their first run of the evening after Rylan Thomas smoked a line drive into right field to score Drake Lubin. But, the lead wouldn't last long. The Spiders got that run right back in the bottom of the first after Luke Mangieri produced a RBI single of his own. 

That run sent the Dock Spiders on a scoring spree. Over the next 3 innings, they scored 4 runs—including a 3 spot in the fourth—that put them up 5-1 after 4. 

But, unlike game one, the Chinook offense had an answer. Between the 5th and 6th innings, the Chinooks put up 6 runs to make it 7-6 heading into the top of the seventh inning. Those RBI’s were courtesy of Royce Ando, Nick Gatewood, Matthew Mika, Caleb Dean and Matt Burch. 

In the seventh, Parker Sanburn, after inheriting a two on, one-out situation in the sixth and striking out two spiders in a row, attempted to keep the mojo rolling and close out the game. But,

Sanburn’s control went a bit haywire. He walked two, hit one, and let the tying run score on a wild pitch to send the game into extra innings. 

Side note, Northwoods League doubleheader games are shortened to seven innings. 

After two innings of little headway, the Chinook offense finally showed life in the top of the 10th. 

With one out, Nick Cheema hit a high chopper to the third baseman that gave him enough time to reach first with an infield single. Then, with two outs, Jacob Richardson drew a tough walk on an eight-pitch at-bat to set the stage for Matt Burch. 

On a one-one count, Burch lofted a lazy fly ball to the left fielder, Tristan Baker. Baker should’ve been easily able to make that play, any Northwoods League left fielder should, but the problem was Baker isn't a left-fielder, he’s a pitcher. 

Why was Baker in left field? As hypothesized by the press box—though not confirmed—the starting left fielder was ejected from the game in the 9th following an argument with the home plate umpire. Originally, we’d thought it was the manager, but it turns out it was a player. 

Regardless, that ejection forced Baker into the outfield and his fly ball flub allowed two runs to score and give the Chinooks a 9-7 heading into the bottom of the 10th. 

"It was a good game, I'm just happy I contributed," Burch said.  "I was happy I got the opportunity and I was able to capitalize," 

Sanburn, still on the mound and in his fifth inning of work, closed the door this time around and earned the win to move the Chinooks to 8-11 on the season.

"I was only planning on going one and two-thirds," Sanburn said postgame. "Coach said, 'If we get the lead, I'd go back out,' so I'm glad we were able to score a few runs,"

Lakeshore gets back underway tomorrow back in Mequon. Cyrillo Watson will throw out the first pitch at 1:35. 

The Lakeshore Chinooks are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. The 23-year-old summer collegiate league is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 20 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, more than 170 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including two-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champion Ben Zobrist (CHC) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET), Curtis Granderson (NYM) and Lucas Duda (NYM).  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.