Lions fight back against Wildkats

A battle of two of the top teams in the Grand River Conference on Monday saw the St. Joseph Christian Lions come away with a 11-7 win over King City.

Just a few days after recording his 250th career strikeout against North Harrison, senior Nick Orscheln was thrusted back into an important role on the mound when he was put back on the mound early in this conference matchup.

With his team down 2-1 going into the second inning, the senior came out of the gates strong. Orscheln struck out the side in the second, however, the Wildkats’ memory was short. In the top of the third inning, King City was able to start things off with back-to-back triples and bringing in two runs across home plate to give itself its largest lead of the game at 4-1.

Just when the Wildkats began to look like they were going to run away with the game, the scoreboard was quickly in favor of the Lions, mostly due to costly errors by King City. With the bases loaded and the score still 4-1 in favor of King City, pitcher Ryder Sample’s pitch got past the catcher, sending the ball to the back wall and allowing a run to score for Christian to bring the lead down to just two for King City.

After getting out of a jam in the third, the bottom of the fourth inning saw the wheels start to fall off for King City. The Lions scored four runs in the inning, the first two came on a routine fly ball dropping into the outfield with the bases loaded. The final two runs of the fourth for St. Joseph Christian came when Hayden Riley sent a pitch into the left center gap for a two-RBI double.

The Lions kept the bats hot throughout the contest, putting five more runs on the board and keeping their distance against a conference. The win gives the Lions their 10th of the season and their third in a row.