By Dave Hart
LocalSportsJournal.com

MUSKEGON – The Muskegon Clippers returned to action after a welcomed four-day break in the schedule.

The Clippers once again took advantage of their opponents’ mishaps and poor pitching and claimed a 7-3 win over the Michigan Monarchs on Friday at historic Marsh Field.

Muskegon is now 10-6 on the season, good for second place in the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate Baseball League.

The Clippers will look to lock up the series victory on Saturday when they host Michigan before heading out to face the Monarchs on the road in the final game of the three-game set.

“You are thankful for the breaks, but the break sometimes feels very long,” said Clippers’ manager Logan Fleener. “Is your opponent, who hasn’t had time off, going to come in and punch you in the mouth. We are not cashing in enough walks, but we are putting people on base, and we need to keep getting there.”

The Clippers only had five hits, but took advantage of five Michigan errors and 14 walks to help score their seven runs.

Muskegon, which had rested pitching arms, were paced by starting pitcher Jacob Pallo, who earned the win by allowing one earned run on seven hits while striking out seven in five innings.

“We haven’t had a lot of guys go five innings yet,” Fleener said. “We hope that becomes a thing and Jacob (Pallo) has been really good for us.”

“I thought that I needed to fill up the zone,” Pallo said. “They hit a few balls, but we still made plays and it was a lot of fun.”

Dylan Kaminski and Isiah Lindsey combined to toss three scoreless innings, while Lukas Brewer recorded the final out.

The teams exchanged runs in the first inning.

Justin Osterhouse had an RBI double to tie up the contest in the bottom of the first.

The Monarchs added another run in the second inning before Muskegon responded with three runs to take a 4-2 lead. Sam Clay hit a two-run double, while the Clippers added a run on an error while Osterhouse was at the plate.

Muskegon added two more runs in the fourth inning to take a 6-2 advantage, scoring on another error and on a sacrifice fly from Diego Pena.

The Clippers scored on a wild pitch in the sixth inning, while Michigan closed out the scoring in the ninth inning.

Osterhouse and Austin Cicerone each had two hits to lead the Clippers, while Clay had one hit. Carson McCoy and Clay each scored two runs.