News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Oscoda third baseman Travis Lamrock (18) tags out Posen baserunner Jared Sharpe (1) as he attempts to steal third during the first game of a baseball doubleheader on Monday in Posen.

POSEN –The Posen baseball team’s inability to make the routine plays proved costly on Monday as the Vikings fell twice in a doubleheader against Oscoda, losing by scores of 7-4 and 16-1.

“Oscoda made the defensive plays and we didn’t, it was that simple,” Posen coach Pat Kowalski said. “I was really disappointed in the performance of our team today. We did not make some fundamental plays that needed to be made and we have a young crew, but there is still no excuse for the mistakes we made today.”

The Owls scored a run in each of the first two innings in the opener on errors by Posen to take an early 2-0 lead. The Vikings responded in the home half of the second and they executed and were affective playing small ball to produce three runs and take a lead.

Avery Werth led off the inning with a walk, stole a base and later came across to score on a double from Andrew Hall.

Hall stole a base and crossed home plate on a perfectly executed suicide squeeze play as Jared Kamyszek put down a perfect bunt to score Hall and Kamyszek got himself into scoring position after an overthrow on the bunt and Kamyszek scored the final run of the inning to put Posen on top by one.

The Vikings lead didn’t last long as Oscoda tied the game in the top of third when Travis Lamrock walked and came across to score on a fielders choice off the bat of Brian Ouillette.

The two teams remained tied after four innings and then the Owls regained the lead scoring one run in the top of the fifth when Jacob Condor scored on another fielders choice, this time off the bat of Colin Lueck.

Trailing by one in the bottom of the fifth, Posen had the tying run on third and go-ahead run on second with two outs when Mark Wisniewski ripped a line drive into the left-center field gap, but center fielder Nicholas Cochell made a great running catch to help the Owls hang onto the lead and gain momentum heading into what would be the final inning.

Oscoda added three more runs in the top of the sixth to extend its lead to four as the Vikings made a few costly errors in the sixth to fall behind.

Posen was only able score once in the bottom of the seventh as Werth came around to score again after he walked for the second time, but the Vikings bounced into a double-play and eventually lost a tough game one.

Jared Sharpe started on the mound for Posen, tossing five innings, allowing seven runs on four hits, walked five and struck out eight as he took the loss.

Grant Huebel picked up the win for Oscoda as he also went five innings, allowing three runs on just one hit, while walking three and struck out five. Nathan Nagel pitched the final inning for the Owls, allowing one run on one hit, while walking one and striking out one.

The nightcap was a much different game as Oscoda tore the cover off the baseball and exploded for 16 runs to mercy the Vikings after just four innings.

“We had a good hard-fought game one victory, but we were able to scrap and win that game,” Oscoda coach Ron Lamrock said. “Our pitching was good tonight and we got a few different people on the mound and we kept the pitch count down which was good and we had some timely hitting and we are a good hitting team and it showed in the second game, which was our breakout game and that was nice to see.”

The Owls opened the game with three runs in the top of the first inning and more errors were committed by Posen.

The Vikings lone run came in the bottom of the first and it was all Oscoda the rest of the way.

Oscoda scored seven in the second inning and six more runs in the sixth as they batted around in both innings and got big hits from the entire lineup.

The two big hits came from Cochell and Lamrock. Cochell hit a three-run home run in the second and Lamrock also went yard for a three-run blast in the fourth inning.

The Owls collected 10 hits in the game and all nine starters chipped in some way offensively.

At the plate in game two, Oscoda was led by Cochell and Lamrock with the home runs. Jacob Condor went 3-for-4 with two doubles, two RBI and three runs scored.

Posen was held to just one hit as Sharpe singled in first inning.

Oscoda improves to 3-2-1 overall on the year and will face a tough part of their schedule in the next week as they play Rogers City on Thursday before hosting a home tournament on the weekend and facing Hillman Monday.

Posen falls to 4-4 overall on the year and will be off until Monday.

Jonny Zawacki can be reached via email at jzawacki@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5690.