Nineteen strikeouts and three walks in 16 innings pitched.
Those are the statistics Plainwell pitcher Trevor Millard had amassed entering the opening game of Plainwell’s Wolverine Conference twinbill with Allegan on Friday, April 22.
And as good as those stats were, they looked even better by game’s end.
Millard struck out 13 Tigers without issuing a walk, leading his team to the 5-2 victory.
Plainwell went on to win game two 14-1 in five innings to complete the sweep.
“Trevor has pitched fantastic in his last three outings,” Plainwell coach Chris Taylor said.
Fantastic indeed.
With his performance against the Tigers factored in, Millard upped his record to 3-1 with a 1.21 ERA. He has 32 strikeouts and only the three walks in 23 innings.
Millard kept Allegan scoreless through the first five innings, as the Trojans built a 4-0 lead. The Tigers did manage singles runs in both the sixth and seventh frames, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
Cole VanGoeye led the Plainwell offense with a 3-for-4 showing that included two doubles and two RBI. Josh Axelson went 2-for-3 with a double and an RBI, while Ben Gernaat went 2-for-4 with two runs.
Austin Adams had two hits, while Lane Sousley went five innings on the mound to suffer the loss.
Gernaat took the mound for Plainwell in game two, surrendering a run in the top of the first inning.
As it turned out, it was the only run he’d allow in his four innings of work.
The Trojans, meanwhile, took advantage of four Allegan errors to score eight times in the bottom of the opening frame.
Plainwell tacked on four runs in the second and two more in the fourth, much to Taylor’s delight.
“Anytime you accumulate any early lead it’s great,” Taylor said. “But twice this season we’ve taken our foot off the gas and allowed teams to get back in the game and even beat us with late-inning rallies. As a coaching staff, we’ve been working on getting our players to remain focused until the final out.”
Hunter Nielsen (3-for-4 with a double and five RBI), Nathan Ingersoll (2-for-2 with a double and an RBI), Axelson (2-for-3 with a double and an RBI) and VanGoeye (2-for-4) led the Trojan offense.
For Allegan (0-10), Sousley accounted for two of the team’s five hits. Alex Babbitt started and took the loss.
Taylor, whose team improved to 5-4 overall and 3-1 in league play, hopes these victories will act as a springboard for the Trojans.
“We’ll try to use this sweep as momentum going into the challenging matchups we have coming up,” he said.
.
