report from Coach LaCroix
It is definitely unusual to play a baseball game on March 3 in North Dakota. However, yesterday the Bismarck State Mystics and the Dakota College at Bottineau Lumberjacks took advantage of the weather and played a double header at the Jack Hoeven complex located in Minot, North Dakota.
In game one, the Lumberjacks established an early lead. Ultimately, in the 2nd inning the Lumberjacks put up the only runs of the ball game. The inning began with Yaniel De Jesus working a 10 pitch at bat walking, earning a free trip down to first base. Once he was there, he did not stay long. De Jesus stole second base. He then followed that up by quickly stealing third base. Freshman outfielder Blake Smith came to the plate with a chance at knocking in his first RBI of his college career, and that is exactly what he did. With an outside fastball, he laced it right back up the middle. De Jesus collected his first career college hit in his first at bat. Smith was not on first base long as the next batter, freshman Braden Hirst, hit a triple. This gave the Jacks a 2-0 lead.
After the 2nd inning, the bats went silent the rest of the game as Bismarck starter Bourassa collected 11 strikeouts on the day. Lumberjacks' starter Josh Churchill answered back. Churchill went five solid innings for the Lumberjacks, giving up four runs (two of them were earned) while striking out four and allowing one free pass. When asked about Churchill's performance Coach LaCroix was pleased with what he saw. "Church gave us an opportunity to win, we learned in game one if we take our foot off the gas it allows teams to hang around. Two runs will not win you many games in this league; we need to be able to scratch some more runs across the board to help our pitching."
In game two, the Lumberjacks would not have much more luck. After a scoreless first frame, the Mystics would score six out of their nine runs. A mixture of walks and errors would hurt the Lumberjacks, along with some timely hitting. With two outs, a dropped fly ball helped plate three runs for the Mystics that inning.
After the game Coach LaCroix responded to the struggles, "The walks we can control, we got into too many high counts. We were pitching from behind instead of getting ahead and making the hitters hit our pitch." Even with some of the blunders in the outfield, Coach LaCroix still seemed optimistic about what the team can accomplish. "Being inside and not being able to get fly balls regularly we knew that there was going to be mistakes that were made. Today we made a lot of little mistakes in the outfield, mistakes though we can clean up and get better at."
The Lumberjacks will be back in action next week as they travel to Colorado State and play the Rams for a double header on March 11th. After they play the Rams, the Lumberjacks will travel to Alamosa where they will have a four-game set with Adams State.