By Escanaba Daily Press

ESCANABA — The Escanaba Eskymos faced off against the Negaunee Miners in a baseball doubleheader Wednesday in Escanaba.

The Eskymos swept the doubleheader behind dynamic pitching performances.

The Eskymos won the first meeting 9-0 and won the second game 7-3. Escanaba junior Eli Gardner pitched game one and pitched five innings, allowing no runs on one hit with eight strikeouts.

The Eskymos got off to a great start scoring four runs in the first inning. Senior Matt Kaven had a two RBI single in the first inning, then later scored on a single by Kaiden Brown.

“I hit the ball well just trying to stay in the groove,” Kaven said.

Eli Gardner struck out the side in the top of the second and Escanaba would add one run in the bottom half of the inning to take a 5-0 lead. In the fifth inning junior Bon LaChance had a double that brought in two RBIs. Kaven then got his second of four runs on the day bringing in LaChance.

“The arm felt good today the fastball was working for me,” Gardner said.

The Miners were able to take a quick 1-0 lead in the first inning of game two, but the Eskymos would come back with two runs in the bottom of the first on singles by Trent Lawson and Eli Gardner. The Eskymos would add on three more runs in the second inning taking a 5-1 lead. Kaven singled again in the third inning that resulted in two more runs. Negaunee would score two runs in the top of sixth on two of Escanaba’s four errors in the game, but was not enough as Nick Chiu got the win throwing over 100 pitches.

“That was a good outing just relied on my two seam fastball to throw strikes Chiu said.

“They have a well coached program here they don’t make many mistakes and they are pretty consistent as a team,” said Negaunee coach Jason Siik.

The Eskymos have been very consistent this season will multiple players getting multiple hits any night out.

“We had good pitching tonight and made play when we were at bat,” Eskymos Coach Scott Hanson said after the games.

The Eskymos improve their record to 10-3 overall and 2-0 in the conference after the games.