By Luc Carter

BATTLE CREEK, Mich — The 2-6 Wisconsin Rapids Rafters continued their road trip, hitting the halfway point with game
four of eight in Battle Creek, MI on Thursday night, taking on the 6-5 Battle Creek Battle Jacks.

The Rafters ran into trouble in the bottom of the first inning after Spencer Lanz walked the first two
batters he faced and an error from shortstop Jax LeGrand loaded the bases. AJ Lucas would
then hit a fly ball to right field that would be deep enough to score one run on a sacrifice fly and
then a throwing error from Zach Gingrich on the throw home would bring home another run
putting the Rafters in a 2-0 hole early.

Battle Jacks starter Keagen Kohloff struggled with command issues today, walking eight Rafters and
hitting one with a pitch. However the Rafters also struggled to get hits. The Rafters offense had two
golden opportunities in both the 3rd and 4th innings loading the bases and both times they were
unable to get the big hit.

In the 5th inning Zach Gingrich drew a walk and advanced to second on a fielder’s choice. Then
he would steal third base. Kohloff would then throw a pitch to the backstop and Gingrich would
come home to score on the wild pitch to cut the Battle Jacks lead in half 2-1.

The Battle Jacks immediately answered back in the bottom half of the inning when Thomas
Cooper, who reached base on an error and moved up to 3rd base on a wild pitch, would score on
a sacrifice fly from Brady LaViolette.

Rafters starter Spencer Lanz who pitched 5.1 innings giving up 3 runs (1 earned) 4 walks and 4
hits and striking out 3 would exit the game in the 6th inning after giving up a leadoff double to
Jake Stedman in the sixth and walking Christian Lopez with one out.

Connor Raradin would make his Rafters debut in relief of Lanz inheriting 2 runners. He was able
to get the next 2 batters out and keep it a 1 run game heading into the 7th.

The Rafters offense still could not find the big hit as they would leave 13 runners on base in the
game tonight. They were also caught stealing twice. The rafters finished the game with just 2
hits.

Battle Creek would score 1 more run in the 7th on a wild pitch to make the score 4-1. In the top
of the 9th inning the Rafters would bring the tying run to the plate with 1 out after Dylan Frank
and Zach Gingrich both drew walks, but the motif of the day of the Rafters not being able to get
the clutch hit with runners on continued as Jacob Janisko struck out Nico Defazio and Harrison
Engskov to win the game for Battle Creek and earned his second save of the season.

The Rafters came into Thursday’s game with the least errors committed in the Northwoods
league with 6. Today they committed 5, a very uncharacteristic day for Wisconsin Rapids.
The Rafters fall to 2-7 and the Battle Jacks improve to 7-5. Game 2 of the series will begin at
7:05 tomorrow with Sam Neal scheduled to start the game. Neal has a 1.29 ERA making his
second start of the season. He is 1-0 after his fantastic start last Saturday at Wausau.