Austin Hemmingson photo The Escanaba baseball team huddles after a loss to Muskegon Oakridge in an MHSAA regional final Saturday in Alma.

ALMA — One bad inning can be the difference between winning and losing.

That was the case for the Escanaba baseball team Saturday afternoon at Alma College, as the Eskymos allowed a four-run inning that proved to be too much to overcome in a 5-2 loss to Muskegon Oakridge in an MHSAA Division 2 regional championship game.

Entering the bottom of the fourth, the score was tied 1-1. Esky starter Jared Hanson was rolling on the mound, striking out the first two batters with little trouble before a costly error allowed the Eagles to start a rally.

Devin Jeppeson popped one up into foul territory on the third-base side, but Esky third baseman Collin Arnt couldn’t field the ball cleanly with the sun bearing down on his eyes.

Jeppeson eventually drew a walk, and fellow teammate Matt Danicek singled to right field, setting the stage for Corey Vanderputte to drive in a run with another single to right.

The inning only got worse from there, as Vanderputte stole second in the next at-bat. Esky catcher Tyler Lawson threw to second base to try to get the out, allowing Danicek to come home from third and make it 3-1.

Two more runs came across before Hanson was pulled in favor of Arnt, who finally stopped the bleeding by getting Ty Asmus to fly out to center with the bases loaded in a 5-1 game.

“We’ve been on a hot streak for about three weeks now, and we’ve played our best baseball,” Esky coach Scott Hanson said. “Today, some of the things we did earlier in the year came back to hurt us. … We had a couple errors, a couple balls that should have been caught, but it is what it is. I didn’t realize how bad it was until (the Eagles) dropped a couple balls over by third base.

“So, it was just an extremely tough situation. The ball went to a bad spot, so I’m not calling Collin out or anything. We started throwing the ball around a little bit, and that hurt us.”

What made it worse was the Eskymos had a chance to previously take the lead in the top half of the inning, but Eagles’ starter Seth Plumhoff got Lawson to hit a soft ground ball to second base with the bases loaded.

Esky also left the bases loaded in the sixth.

“All year long we’ve had an issue of having runners on base and not getting that key hit,” coach Hanson said. “I don’t know how many we had total, but it’s probably 10 to 12 runners that we left on, and we didn’t get that two-out hit.”

Bryant Maki led off the seventh with a double and eventually scored on a wild pitch to make it 5-2, but Asmus finished the job by getting Ben Johnson to fly out to right.

“It feels real good,” said Eagles coach Brandon Barry. “After last year’s COVID shutdown … We have two kids that have varsity experience — those sophomores that were with us in the semifinals two years ago. Seth Plumhoff is one of them, and he did a fantastic job (pitching). Ethan (Miller) got us to this game last Wednesday, so we’ve been riding those two lately.

“Our bats are starting to come around a little bit. I thought we had some timely hits. We put Corey Vanderputte at the top of our order, and he has just been lightning. When he gets a hold of the ball, he is trouble on the bases, and we’ve had some other guys coming through with some big hits. We did what we had to do to beat a good team.”

The Eskymos got on the board first on an RBI groundout by Hunter Lancour in the top of the third, but the Eagles quickly answered on an RBI single to left by Miller in the bottom half of the inning.

“Kids didn’t try to do too much,” Barry said. “(Hanson) was dealing, and he was throwing as hard as probably any kid that we saw this year. He got into a rhythm, and we had to break up his rhythm by kind of stepping out of the box a little bit. You can’t overswing at a kid like that because you’ll end up looking ridiculous when you do because he’s going to blow it by you, and you’re going to end up swinging yourself into the ground. Once we took a little bit of a stepback approach, we put a few hits together, and that was the difference.”

Oakridge, which out-hit Esky 7-5, advanced to play Gladwin in the quarterfinals later Saturday afternoon, but rain postponed the game, with the Eagles (14-12-1) trailing 4-1 in the fourth. That contest will finish today, with the winner advancing to the state semifinals at Michigan State University later this week.

The Eskymos finished their season 23-6.

“Great season,” coach Hanson said. “A couple months ago I wasn’t even sure we were going to have a season with the way things were going with COVID, so when it’s all said and done and all the emotions are gone, we played a season, we’re 23-6, we made it to the regionals, and the boys had a great time. They represented our school and community like champs, and that’s all I can ask for. It’s been great.”