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ALPENA–The Alpena baseball team split a pair of Big North Conference games with Traverse City Central on Tuesday, winning the opener 8-3 and losing the second game 8-7.

In the opener, Alpena’s offense exploded for seven first-inning runs and the Wildcats cruised from there. Matt Thompson led Alpena with two hits and also had an RBI; Logan Momrik and Kaydn Budnik each had an RBI. Momrik threw five innings, walking one and allowing two runs on nine hits. Thompson pitched the last inning in relief.

Alpena fell behind 8-3 after five innings in the nightcap, but tried to rally back with three runs in the sixth inning and one more in the seventh.

Travis Weide, Budnik and Zann each had two hits, Ryan Lee had two RBI and Zann had an RBI.