Fond du Lac, WI— The Lakeshore Chinooks defeated the Fond du Lac Dock Spiders 11-2 on Friday night. The win boosted the Chinooks to 27-22 on the season and 9-5 in the second half.
Their 9-5 second half record is tied for first in the South Division with the 8-4 Wisconsin Rapids Rafters. Their 27-22 overall record places them 0.5 games ahead of the 26-22 Madison Mallards for the fourth and final at-large playoff spot.
Tonight’s game was an all-around show of force from the Chinooks. On the mound, Alec Marsh was dealing after a bit of a rough first inning. He finished with 7 IP, five hits, 1 ER, 3 BB, and 10 K’s. At the plate, Matthew Mika hit his second home run in two days and collected four more RBI. Daniel DeSimone added four RBI of his own out of the eight hole.
In the bottom of the first, the Dock Spiders jumped out to an early lead when, after a Jack Dunn error, Eric Feliz, who lead off the inning with a single, came around to score
That’s the only offense the Spiders would weave until the 7th, but the Chinooks were just getting started.
In the top of the second, Caleb Dean started things out with a leadoff walk, Jack Dunn laced a single, and Tim DalPorto brought home Dean to score the first run of the game. Then, a DeSimone RBI groundout made it 2-1 Chinooks.
With DalPorto on third, Drake Lubin drew a walk to set the stage for Matthew Mika, who slugged his second homer in as many days to give the Chinooks a 5-1 lead.
Mika, who earlier in the season mentioned all of his home runs are mistakes—he’s trying to hit line drives—had two homers, five hits, and eight RBI in his two games against Fond du Lac.
The Chinooks tacked on two more in the third, and in the fourth, put up two more via a Rylan Thomas moon shot to deep centerfield. It was Thomas’ team leading eighth home run and fortieth RBI of the season.
The scoring settled down until the top of the seventh, that’s when the Spiders finally pegged Marsh for his first earned run of the game.
With two outs, Colin Ridout and Eric Feliz poked back-to-back singles through the left side, and Ridout was able to score after two consecutive wild pitches by Marsh.
But, that was the only flaw that was present in Marsh’s final line. Further, the Arizona State righty has been excellent as of late. Since becoming a full-time starter, he has a 1.80 ERA in 20 innings and has double the amount of strikeouts (22) than hits allowed (11).
The final two Chinook runs of the night came off the bats of Mika in the 8th and DeSimone in the 9th.
The final news of the night came from two Chinook debuts, Mitch Mallek (St. Cloud State) and Aaron Winkler (Richmond). Mallek didn't get a hit in his first at-bat, but he did make a highlight reel catch.
With Winkler on the mound, AJ Lewis hit a sinking liner to shallow right field and Mallek—full extension—laid out and snow coned the ball inches above the grass. Talk about a first impression.
The Chinooks are back underway tomorrow where they’ll face the Rockford Rivets at Kapco for the first of a two-game home and home series. Austin Jones is the scheduled starter.
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 180 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.
