Justin St. Ours | Daily Press Gladstone’s Landon Pepin slides safely into home against Escanaba catcher Kaiden Hughes Friday in Escanaba.

ESCANABA — The Gladstone Minor Boys’ Little League (age 9-10) All-Stars scored early and often here Friday night, enough to post a 21-13 baseball triumph over Escanaba in the opening round of the Yooper tournament.

Gladstone returns to Dickson Field Sunday to face Iron Mountain in a 2 p.m. contest.

Esky is idle until July 11 when it hosts Gladstone in an area tournament opener.

“It was a fun game,” said Gladstone manager Mike Sanville. “The kids did great. They stayed focused and all four of our pitchers did real well. Everybody hit. It’s exciting to play baseball with them. Iron Mountain has a great program. It’s just a matter of keeping the kids excited and focused, playing Gladstone baseball and doing our best.”

Gladstone scored in every inning except the fourth. Esky then pushed two runs across its half of the fourth, trimming its deficit to 11-7.

“I thought we were going to come back for a little while, then a few errant throws hurt us,” said Esky manager Dan Garcia. “We kept fighting. The kids played hard.”

Gladstone, taking advantage of a hit batsman, a walk, a wild pitch and an error, scored four times for a 15-7 cushion in the fifth.

Esky, however, didn’t go away, scoring on Zahn Anderson’s double to left-center and Alex Ison’s infield single to make it 15-9 in its half of the fifth.

Gladstone jumped to a 5-0 lead in the opening frame before Brody Ison’s two-run, inside-the-park homer moved Esky within 5-2 in the bottom of the inning.

“The guys came out ready to play and all of them did a great job,” said Sanville.

Esky collected 15 hits, led by Ison who hit for the cycle and finished 4-for-4. Alex Ison added three hits and Griffin Johnson and Zahn Anderson had two each.

“He’s a good hitter,” said Garcia. “That doesn’t happen very often at this age. As a team, we hit the ball pretty well.”

Gladstone had 11 hits, led by Braxton Breitenbach, Xavier Leipzig and Jackson Lee with two apiece and Carter Sanville’s three-run, inside-the-park blast to left in the sixth.

Joey Garcia, the first of five Esky pitchers, took the loss. Collectively, they struck out nine, walked 11 and hit two batters. The four Gladstone hurlers fanned seven, walked three and hit a batter.

Esky committed four errors and Gladstone had two.

The tourney continues today with Tri-County meeting Munising at 11 a.m. and Norway facing Kingsford at 1 p.m. The two winners meet Sunday at 4 and the championship game takes place Monday at 6.