Houghton pitcher Eli Heathman throws from the mound a game against Kingsford Monday at John Bostwick Memorial Field in Houghton. (Eddie O’Neill/Daily Mining Gazette)

HOUGHTON — The Houghton Gremlins and the Kingsford Flivvers squared off on the baseball diamond for the second and third time in a week Monday, and the results were the same. Kingsford swept the Gremlins, 11-3 and 4-0, at John Bostwick Memorial Field.

Last Thursday they won 0-12; thus outscoring the Gremlins 27-3 in three games.

Not good, according to Gremlins coach Kevin Bostwick.

“Last time I checked, you cannot win games with zero runs,” he quipped. “In the first game, we did not have the fire in our belly. In the second one, we had more jump, but could not string together any hits.”

The opener was also plagued with errors by the Gremlins. Seven of them to be exact. In fact, Kingsford’s first at bat, Garrett Brown reached on a throwing error. That set the tone, as not only did Brown score, but so did three more. The Gremlins trailed 4-0.

“I liked how we jumped out to an early lead in the first game,” noted Flivvers coach Joe Kriegl. “That helps.”

The Flivvers added two more in the fourth and three more in the fifth before the Gremlins got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fifth. Walks to Joel Durocher and Brycyn Nettell led to them both scoring. Eli Heathman was the third run. He came home after reaching first on a single to the left side.

Kingsford led 9-3 at that point.

The Flivvers added two more in the top of the sixth and put the Gremlins down in order in the bottom of that same frame to win 11-3.

The second game didn’t look much different. In fact Kriegl

summed up his team’s performance best.

“We did a lot of little things right,” he related. “We played clean baseball – error free.”

He added that he was pleased with his pitcher Jonah Doenier, who earned a complete-game win. The right hander allowed just four hits while striking out three and walking three in his shutout performance.

For the Flivvers, the bats came alive in the second, third and fourth innings with one, two and one runs scored respectively. A bases-clearing double to left field by Logan Grondin scored Kriegl and Andres Finley in the third and sealed the win for the Flivvers.

Pitcher Eli Heathman took the loss for the Gremlins.

Up next

The Gremlins will travel to Negaunee to wrap up the regular season Wednesday. However, there is nothing regular about it according to their coach.

“Playoff baseball starts in Negaunee,” noted Bostwick. “We have to have that mentality and not wait till next week.”