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AMATEUR BASEBALL: Milroy Yankees use powerful start, solid pitching to take down Stark, 6-2

Photo by Sam Thiel Milroy’s Branden Flock slides into second base on a steal attempt during their game against Stark on Saturday. The Yankees defeated Stark 6-2.

MILROY — After having its five-game win streak snapped with back-to-back losses, the Milroy Yankees amateur baseball team looked to regain its form in its regular-season finale against Stark. The Yankees did just that, bouncing back into the win column with a 6-2 victory against the Longhorns on Saturday.

Milroy manager Ryan Rohlik said it was good for them to get back into a rhythm both on the mound and at the plate after a couple of tough losses.

“It was good to get Isaac [Schmitt] out here and have Stark come over and play us. Isaac hasn’t pitched in a couple of weeks so we definitely wanted to get him back in the rhythm before regions come up and same with our hitters,” Rohlik said. “We’ve kind of scuttled the last couple of games and needed any kind of good mojo to go our way so it was good to see us put up four runs in the fifth and take some good approaches up there. We left a lot of guys on base but at the same time we’ll take what we can get.”

The Yankees jumped out to an early lead, as Branden Flock led things off with a single before Matt Bauer connected on a two-run home run to give Milroy a 2-0 advantage after one. The two teams then traded scoreless frames for the next few innings, as Schmitt and Stark’s Nick Labat settled into their respective zones. Then in the bottom of the fifth, Milroy’s offense came alive again.

Schmitt led things off with a single before Jacob Hughes reached on an error and Jackson Hughes reached on an infield single to load the bases with no outs. After Flock connected on an RBI single, Andy Schmidt stepped up and cleared the basepaths with one swing, smacking a three-run triple to push the Yankees’ advantage to 6-0.

Stark wouldn’t go down without a fight, though, drawing a leadoff walk to start the top of the eighth before an infield single and an RBI groundout got the Longhorns on the board. Stark then got an RBI single on the ensuing at-bat, but couldn’t draw any closer as Milroy’s Ty Kemp came on in the ninth for a 1-2-3 inning to seal the victory.

Bauer led the Yankees with two hits, including the home run, and two RBI while Flock added two hits and an RBI and Andy Schmidt had a hit and three RBI.

Schmitt earned the victory on the mound, going eight innings while allowing two runs on five hits and struck out 11.

“Isaac is Isaac, when he’s attacking the strike zone and he’s getting that fastball in command I feel like his other pitches are just easy for him,” Rohlik said. “He’s a tough pitcher to hit against and it was good to get him in rhythm and get his legs underneath him a little, so I was proud of the way he battled and kept attacking the zone.”

Up next

The Yankees (15-7) earned a top 4 seed in the Region 4C tournament and will look to play one or two more games before starting tournament play on Aug. 6 in Marshall. Rohlik said a key takeaway is to get everyone on the field again and play with the confidence they saw in the middle of the season.

“We’re going to try and get a couple of games or at least a game in because we don’t want to be off for two weeks and not play,” Rohlik said. “A key thing is just getting everyone here, we haven’t had the same people here so we need to tighten the belt a little and get back to the way we were playing midseason where we had some good wins and did all of the small things right. We need to make sure we do that, otherwise it’s going to be a very short postseason for us and hopefully we can showcase what we’ve been doing for the majority of the year and not what we’ve done the last couple of games before this one.”

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