News Photo by James Andersen Onaway's Trevor Wregglesworth throws a pitch during a Division 4 regional semifinal against Maple City Glen Lake on Saturday in Rogers City. Onaway rallied late, but ultimately lost to the Lakers 4-3.

ROGERS CITY–There were no last-inning heroics for the Onaway baseball team this time.

But the Cardinals made sure they went out fighting.

Maple City Glen Lake managed to stay one step ahead of the Cardinals on Saturday and defeated them 4-3 in a Division 4 regional semifinal in Rogers City.

The Cardinals rallied from a 4-0 deficit late in the game, but couldn’t muster any offense in the seventh inning and failed to cash in on early opportunities.

“Listen, that’s a heck of a team we just faced. They’re ranked number ninth ranked team in the state and to give them that kind of battle, I couldn’t be prouder,” Onaway coach Mike Crull said. “They’ve been playing their tails off these last few weeks. I’m extremely proud of their resilience. There’s not a game we’ve been in here lately that we thought we were out of; doesn’t matter the competition, doesn’t matter the score and they proved that again today.”

Trailing 4-0 in the bottom of the fifth inning, Onaway finally broke through with two runs. DJ Fenstermaker led off the inning by scoring on a play where two errors allowed him to round the bases. Fenstermaker hit an infield ground ball, but the Lakers misplayed it at first base and Fenstermaker easily took second base as the ball sailed to the fence. As the Lakers tried to recover and get Fenstermaker at third base, another throwing error allowed him to come around to score.

Two batters later, Josiah Crawford singled, advanced to second on a bunt and came around to score on a passed ball.

The Cardinals added a run in the sixth inning as Fenstermaker singled to score Jeremiah Crawford and cut the Lakers’ lead to one.

Onaway starter Trevor Wregglesworth struck out the side in the top of the seventh, firing up the Cardinals on the bench, but Onaway couldn’t carry that momentum into its final turn at the plate.

Lakers starter Jared Jackson struck out two and induced a ground ball, retiring the Cardinals in order and preserving the win for Glen Lake.

Jackson allowed a three runs on four hits, striking out 11 and walking one.

Gaylord St. Mary defeated Glen Lake 13-10 in the regional final.

Wregglesworth pitched well for Onaway, allowing four runs on seven hits with 12 strikeouts and no walks. Unfortunately, the Lakers took advantage of two bad pitches to plate the winning runs.

The first came in the fourth inning when Brandon Tremble hit a two-run double to right field, giving Glen Lake a 2-0 lead. The second came in the next inning when Nick Apsey hit a two-run home run that just managed to clear the left field fence.

“During the regular season, you can get away with those. Now in the regionals, that’s not the case,” Crull said it was a good learning experience.”

Cade Peterson and Robbie Dezelski had two hits each for Glen Lake.

Onaway had some early scoring chances, but failed to capitalize on them. In the first inning, Nick Byrne beat a pickle to advance to third base with one out, but Jackson struck out the next two batters to end the threat.

In the second inning, the Cardinals got runners on first and second with two outs, but again Jackson ended the threat with a strikeout.

Josiah Crawford, DJ Fenstermaker, Gavin Fenstermaker and Lucas Tollini each had a hit for Onaway.

Despite the loss, Crull was encouraged by his team’s play and thinks brighter days are ahead for the Cardinals. Onaway won its first district title since 2013 last weekend and Crull said his team plans to learn from Saturday’s loss.

“We’re returning a lot of our core guys next year. I see us making an even deeper run next season. We’ll learn from this, we’ll get better and come back stronger next year,” Crull said.

St. Mary defeated Alcona 5-2 in the day’s first semifinal, plating four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to pull away, including three on a bases-clearing double that came with two outs and on a payoff pitch.

St. Mary scored a run in the fifth inning to take a 1-0 lead.

Alcona (21-12) scored two runs on an error in the top of the seventh inning, but couldn’t pull any closer.

Jacob McFadden pitched a complete game for Alcona, allowing nine hits and striking out three. Brock Franklin was 2-for-3, Erik Davey had a hit and Josh Kilbourn and Devon Mills each had a double.

“My kids played well. We were right there and we hit the ball hard all day, we just hit it right at them,” Alcona coach Terry Franklin said. “Baseball’s a weird game and sometimes that happens. Even when it was 1-0, I knew we could come back and win the ball game, but when you’re down 5-0 in the seventh inning, that’s hard to come back from.”

James Andersen can be reached via email at sports@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5694. Follow James on Twitter @ja_alpenanews.