Gremlins baseball takes two from Copper Kings

Eddie O’Neill/Daily Mining Gazette
Houghton catcher Brycyn Nettell puts the tag on Calumet’s Colton Stafford after a third strike on Wednesday at the Houghton High School baseball field.

HOUGHTON — The Houghton Gremlins arrived at their home field Thursday with hitting on their minds. They swung their way to a sweep of the visiting Calumet Copper Kings with scores of 12-3 and 14-3. The second game ended in the fourth due to the 10-run mercy run.

“Before today, we were struggling at the dish,” noted Houghton’s coach Kevin Bostwick. “We had a lot of soft contact and strikeouts, but credit to the boys as they put in the work to change that around and hit the ball hard today.”

Credit also goes to Gremlins’ starter and finisher of the first game, Bryce Pugh. The senior hurler threw a complete six innings allowing five hits and just one earned run. Along the way, he struck out eight and walked just two.

“Bryce threw a masterpiece,” Bostwick added. “He threw strikes, and that is what we needed.”

In the opener, Calumet (0-3) jumped on the board in the first with two runs. Houghton countered with one. The Copper Kings added another in the second. In that frame, the Copper Kings’ Charlie Habnen scored after reaching on an error. He crossed home on an Alex Tarnowski base hit up the middle. The Copper Kings led 3-1, but that is as good as it got.

The Gremlins (5-2) rallied four runs in the bottom of the second to go ahead 5-3 after two. They took advantage of six walks issued by Calumet’s starter Tarnowski and several throwing errors in the field.

The second was Tarnowski’s last inning. He suffered the loss and was replaced by Darin Berg who threw strikes. Berg allowed six runs on five hits over the course of three innings as the Gremlins won this one 12-3.

“Walks and errors will kill you,” said coach David Yeo of the Copper Kings, and that was the case in both games. However, I will add that this is just our second and third games of the season. So, we are still trying to figure out the pieces.”

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The second game told a similar story just two innings shorter. In two innings, Calumet’s starter Trent Habnen allowed 10 earned runs courtesy of seven walks. Swinging a big bat in this one was Houghton’s Joel Durocher. He was three for three at the plate. This included four RBIs for the afternoon.

While the Copper Kings rallied the bats for three runs trying to crawl back into this one, it wouldn’t be enough. The Gremlins countered with four runs in the bottom of the third and sealed the 14-3 win. Rylan Issacson was the winning pitcher for the Gremlins.

Up Next

The Gremlins will travel to Marquette on Friday for varsity and JV matchups. The Copper Kings will face Gladstone today and then travel to Stanton for a doubleheader against the Jeffers Jets on Wednesday.