Royals baseball drops three contests to DCTC over the weekend

Article by Sam Herder, Devils Lake Journal Sports, published April 4th, 2016.

If the Lake Region State College baseball team could, it would take back just one inning in each of their three home losses to Dakota County Technical College over the weekend.

The Royals lost 3-1 and 18-3 in a Saturday doubleheader and 11-1 Sunday. One inning made the difference in each of the games.

"It was a good weekend, we did a lot of things right," LRSC head coach Kyal Williams said. "The first game was a great baseball game. We fought well, but one hit here or there for us, it would have gone the other way. Other than that, the next couple games we had some mental mistakes that cost us some runs. It started to pile on after that. They're a good team and it was tough with the cold weather. It was our first time outside in cold weather. But just trying to get them mentally stronger for the season to fight through those situations."

The first game saw a pitching duel between LRSC's Ryan Clark and DCTC's Nick Bentley. The two aces threw scoreless innings through the first three.

The Blue Knights finally crossed the plate to start the fourth, but LRSC answered quickly in the bottom of the inning. 

Patrick Becker started it off with a double, then Cesar Bernal knocked him home with an RBI single.

After a scoreless fifth, DCTC added two more runs in the sixth and held on for the win.

Clark went six innings for the Royals while Bentley threw a complete game for the win.

Things snowballed for the Royals late in game 2.

The Blue Knights jumped out to a 6-0 lead through three innings. Then LRSC's offense found some life in the bottom of the fourth.

The Royals loaded the bases with zero outs, then scored their first run on a balk. During the same at-bat, Edgar Millan hit a sacrifice fly to score Jon Lund. Landen Hall rounded out the scoring with a double, scoring Ryne Dolleslager.

But defensively, LRSC didn't give its offense any help in the next two innings. Several uncharacteristic errors led to five runs in the fifth, then seven runs in the sixth as DCTC needed six innings to win 18-3.

"Each game it was the fifth or the sixth inning where one error, all of sudden they seemed to tack on five or six more hits," Williams said. "It's one of those games where they hit well when it counted. We were right there, but just a couple little things we'll correct."

Sunday's game had a similar feel to Saturday's game 2. 

LRSC trailed 2-1 heading into the fifth inning. But the Blue Knights started to pile it on again, scoring six runs. They followed up with three more runs in the sixth inning to win via the 10-run rule through six innings, 11-1.

"We just couldn't seem to get it going (offensively)," Williams said. "We hit well in Arkansas. We'll try and get back to that same approach. We'll be good, we have a lot of games and we'll fight back."

The second game of Sunday's doubleheader was called off due to cold and windy weather conditions.

The Royals are now 5-10 to begin conference play. They'll host Bismarck State College in a home doubleheader at 3 p.m. Tuesday.

Go Royals!