Lakers take two from Portagers

BEAR LAKE — The Bear Lake softball team swept a West Michigan D League doubleheader against Onekama on Monday.

The Lakers won the opener in their last at-bat 11-10 and then cruised to a 15-4 win in the second game.

“It gave us a good look at them,” said Bear Lake coach Garret Waller, whose team will face the Portagers in a Division 4 district quarterfinal. “We matched up pretty good.”

Onekama (7-9, 1-5 WMD) scored two runs in the top of the sixth inning for a 10-8 lead in the first game, but Bear Lake (15-12, 6-4 WMD) answered with three in the bottom of the frame for the win. Briann Bowling, who was playing her first game since suffering an ankle injury, put the ball in play to get the winning run in.

Emileigh Ferguson got the win in the circle and struck out seven while also finishing with two hits, including a double, and two RBIs. Madeleine Smeltzer went 3-for-3 with an RBI, Jillian Johnson had two hits and two RBIs while Katie Millard had a double and a triple.

Emily Bergren took the loss for Onekama and had six strikeouts. Tawny Kott led the Portagers at the plate by going 3-for-4 while Nicki Slater had a hit and drove in a run.

Onekama coach Rob Johnson said he thought the close loss in the opener carried over to game two.

“The whole night was chalked up to mental readiness on our part,” he said. “We just didn’t have it. We didn’t have a lot of physical errors, but we had a lot of mental errors.”

Ferguson and Millard both pitched three innings and each allowed two runs.

McKenna Fink went 3-for-5 with two RBIs, Hannah Harrington had an inside-the-park home run and drove in two while Millard finished 3-for-4 with a triple and two RBIs.

Bergren, Slater, Sierra Warner and Kaitlin Kubiskey each had a hit for Onekama