Austin Hemmingson | Daily Press Escanaba’s Jake Anderson (15) rounds third base to score in front of Cheboygan’s Tristan Schley (14) during Tuesday’s Division 2 district quarterfinal at Escanaba.

ESCANABA — Escanaba baseball coach Scott Hanson believes his team is rounding into form for districts. After the Eskymos swept Menominee in their regular season finale May 21, he talked about how he felt they were peaking at the right time.

Esky backed that up in its Division 2 district opener here Tuesday evening, coming up with the right plays at the right time in an 8-2 win over Cheboygan. The victory sends the Eskymos to the district semifinals, where they host Marquette Saturday at 2:30 p.m.

The Eskymos (18-11) got on the board first with an RBI single by Noah Lancour to make it 1-0 in the second inning. They then added two in the third when Craig Kamin and Grant LaMarche stole second and third to put themselves in scoring position for Jake LaFave, who singled back up the middle to make it 3-0.

The Chiefs (16-12) mounted their most serious charge in the bottom of the third, loading the bases with nobody out. Kamin drilled Tyler Smith with a pitch to make it 3-1, then a sacrifice fly to center by Jake Stempky made it 3-2. Kamin bounced back by getting Caleb Williams to pop out to first base and then James Bur grounded out to third to end the threat.

“I just focused more,” Kamin said. “I threw the curveball over for a strike right away and got the fastball over more often. I just worked all my pitches in.”

The Eskymos blew the game open in the sixth, smacking four doubles and scoring five runs. Bryant Maki and Lancour each had RBI doubles, Kamin hit a two-run single and LaMarche added an RBI triple to make it 8-2.

“3-2 made me a little nervous. Four doubles in one inning was really nice to see.. I don’t know if we’ve done that all year,” Hanson said. “I kind of said it the other day — I think we’re peaking at the right time. Our starting pitching has been phenomenal, we’re not beating ourselves, our defense has improved and our approach at the plate has improved. Early on we played a little bit of small ball to get things going.”

The Chiefs had an opportunity to chop into their deficit in the bottom half after loading the bases with one out, but once more Kamin worked out of a jam by striking out the next two batters.

That was a microcosm of the game for the Chiefs, who also committed five errors and couldn’t get the big hit or make the big play in a rematch of a game Esky won 6-0 in the Escanaba Invitational May 11.

“Early mistakes hurt us and we needed that timely hit. We had a couple opportunities with the bases loaded to get runs across but we couldn’t do it. They did, we didn’t,” Chiefs’ coach Kevin Baller said. “The errors were big. You can’t do that, especially come district time because it almost always comes back to bite you. Unfortunately, they took advantage of our mistakes and we couldn’t capitalize when we had the opportunities.”

Kamin earned the win, pitching 6 2/3 innings before being pulled for the last out because of a pitch count limit. He surrendered just two runs (one earned) on four hits while fanning 11 and walking three. He also helped his own cause at the plate with two RBIs and two runs scored. Lancour added two hits and two RBIs while LaFave chipped in with two RBIs.

“It was just a great all-around baseball game,” Hanson said. “It was a nice environment with a lot of people sitting in the park between the baseball and softball game, so it was nice to play a meaningful game. It was nice to see our kids step up in a clutch situation and make plays and it was nice to see the bats get going too.”

Isaac Chasse took the loss for the Chiefs, allowing eight runs (three earned) on six hits while walking and punching out three. Tristan Schley pitched 1 1/3 innings in relief, giving up one hit while whiffing one. Smith and Stempky each had one RBI.

“I feel very good about what we did this year,” Baller said. “We had a very rough start to the season, then we were actually 13-4 in our last 17 games. I feel very good about this team and this group of guys. They played hard and worked hard and gave themselves a chance to do good things; it just didn’t go our go way today.”

The winner of the semifinal between Esky and Marquette advances to face the winner of Petoskey vs. Sault Ste. Marie in the district championship game Saturday at 5.