Posted by Matt Wenzel, Manistee News Advocate
Trailing 6-0 against Frankfort after the top of the third inning, Onekama rallied to take an 8-7 lead through four.
The Portagers, however, didn’t have another huge comeback in them and couldn’t recover from the seven runs the Panthers put on the scoreboard in the top of the seventh to break open a tie game en route to the 17-10 semifinal win on Monday.
“Any time you see that many runs on the scoreboard, you know your pitcher is throwing a lot of pitches,” said Onekama coach Rob Johnson. “I think our pitch count got way up and we got tired.”
Emily Bergren took the loss in the circle for the Portagers and was charged with all 17 runs over 6-plus innings before Kaylor DeWitt got the final three outs.
“We struggled to get an out and Frankfort capitalized on some of our mistakes,” Johnson said. “It seemed to me every time we hit the ball it went to them and every time they hit the ball it went away from us. Take nothing away from Frankfort, Frankfort is a very disciplined team.”
After beating Bear Lake in a district quarterfinal last week, the Portagers had Frankfort’s full attention.
“We prepared all week long for one game and it was the Onekama game,” Thompson said. “I knew that their pitcher was tough, I knew that they played good defense and I knew that we had to out-hit them.”
