Wednesday afternoon the Muskies took on non-conference opponent Ripon, and where able to come away with one victory in the doubleheader.
The Muskies offense wasn’t able to get anything going in game one and the Muskies would go on to lose 7-0. The second game though would be a different story, and after a hard fought battle the Muskies were able to come out on top winning 6-5.
Trenton Schwalbach would start the first game, but struggled giving up all seven runs Ripon would score that game. Trent also gave up ten hits, four walks, and only one strikeout.
Reliever David Cherney would come in and stop the bleeding throwing 5 shutout innings allowing just one hit.
Unfortunately the good relief performance would be wasted as the Muskies were only able to muster 4 hits in the whole game. The only offensive bright spot for the Muskies was Nate Soley who stayed hot going 2-4 in the game.
In game two Andy Chitwood would have a chance to redeem a rough performance against Concordia on Sunday, and that’s exactly what he did pitching five innings of no-hit baseball.
Chitwood began to struggle a little before reliever Justin Reminger would take over the game. Chitwood finished allowing three runs, only one of which was earned. About the Performance Chitwood said, “I really wanted to come back strong after my performance against Concordia, and knew I had to better job of keeping the ball down and on the corners.”
Justin Reminger would go on to collect his first career win pitching 3 2/3 innings, allowing just two runs.
The Lakeland offense finally woke up for the second game, putting up six runs on eleven hits. The teams would trade the lead several times, but the Muskies never laid down and always had an answer for Ripon.
Ultimately Nickel would be the hero singling in Matt Kruegar for the go ahead run, that would be enough for the Muskies.
Soley continued to look strong going 2-3 and scoring two runs in the game. Ryan Boettcher and Mike Ruzek also had strong performances, both going 2-4 in the game.
Lakeland has a crucial weekend of conference baseball ahead of them this weekend, starting Saturday, when they host Wisconsin Lutheran for a doubleheader starting at noon.