By Journal Sports Staff

GRAND RAPIDS — A lightning delay wasn’t able to charge up the Negaunee baseball team as the Upper Peninsula representatives fell 10-3 in the championship game at the Little League Senior Division state finals on Monday afternoon.

After winning their semifinal 8-1 over Hillman that morning, the Negaunee 15- and 16-year-olds took to the diamond again in the afternoon to face Grand Rapids Southern, the host of this eight-team event.

“We had a great tournament, and I am really proud of these players, and very thankful for my assistant coaches Dean Leece and Mike DellAngelo,” Negaunee manager Jeremy Steele said in an email detailing the result. “We had an incredible run and turned a lot of heads.”

Negaunee got off to a good start in the finale, scoring twice in the bottom of the first inning after pitcher Owen Cardinal struck out two batters while getting GR Southern out 1-2-3 in the top of the inning.

The early rally opened with Cardinal walking and stealing second as Evan DellAngelo hit what Steele described as “a rocket off the left field fance” to score him with a double. DellAngelo then stole third, setting up Tristan Slater’s deep fly ball that became a sacrifice fly as DellAngelo scored.

Southern tied the score in the top of the second with two singles, a walk and an error, then went up 4-2 in the fourth with three more singles and another error.

Negaunee attempted to retie it in the bottom of the fourth as Aiden Steele rounded the bases without benefit of a hit, getting his team within 4-3. Steele walked, moved to second on an errant pickoff attempt, then to third on a passed ball before scoring on an error.

The GR team regained a two-run lead in the fifth with a walk and single scoring a run, which is when the lightning delay halted play for about a half-hour.

Manager Steele was forced to change pitchers, mainly because of the pitch-count limit, as Cardinal finished with 4 2/3 innings on the mound as he gave up five runs — only two earned — on five hits as he struck out seven.

In the sixth, Southern erupted for five more runs to pad its lead after four hits and four walks.

Negaunee managed just three hits, a double by DellAngelo and singles by Cardinal and Slater.

“We faced two pitchers throwing well into the mid to upper 80s (mph),” Jeremy Steele said of Southern’s hurlers. “This was the greatest velocity these boys and I have seen.

“It showed. We struck out 13 times.”

The manager also noted that each team committed three errors.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.