Todd Rose | Daily Press Escanaba pitcher Parker Frappier throws to first baseman Bon LaChance in an attempt to pick off Eastern Upper Peninsula’s Garrett Gorsuch Thursday night in Escanaba.

ESCANABA — As the Escanaba Cubs entered the bottom half of the sixth inning in a Zone Tournament contest against the Eastern Upper Peninsula Wood Ducks Thursday evening in Escanaba, things were looking bleak as they trailed EUP by five runs.

Then, the bats came alive, the breaks went the Cubs’ way and, before long, nine runs were put up in the inning by the Esky squad to put them up 10-6 for the win.

The offensive attack came on the back of a four-run effort from EUP in the top half of the inning.

“(That was) turning the game around,” said Escanaba manager John Bintner. “They had all the momentum you could ever ask for. We switched the pitcher, and the other guy wasn’t as effective, gave up some hits, some wild pitches and some runs.”

The key to the comeback win, commented Bintner, came in large part due to smarts from inside the batter’s box.

“You get out of that inning, and you can call it a merry-go-round of success. But, we talked about it a little bit, not trying to do too much as a hitter,” he said. “They took a couple walks, they were patient, they had good at-bats, they didn’t try to do too much swinging the bat.”

Jack McEvers put a single liner into left field for a two-run RBI for the tying and go-ahead runs as Eli Gardener and Lennox Peacock both crossed the dish.

Bon LaChance — who solidified himself as one of the more dangerous batters on the Escanaba Eskymos’ high school team earlier this spring — followed that up with a single to center field to score Chase Cloutier.

McEvers and LaChance both scored on bases-loaded walks.

Parker Frappier did most of the pitching for Esky in the win, going five innings with two strikeouts and two earned runs off of six hits.

Eli Gardener went one and two-thirds with one strikeout and two hits given up with a walk, while Lennox Peacock went a third and gave up four runs, three earned, off two hits and two walks.

The win helped give the Cubs confidence heading into the remainder of the Zone Tournament this weekend as they played Ishpeming and Marquette on Friday.

“We figured two wins, for the most part, would get us to Saturday,” said Bintner. “Now, the game (Friday) afternoon is big. It’s huge. We have to go after it and get a win. Then we can relax a little bit.”

For the Wood Ducks, the mistakes in the bottom of the sixth were costly.

“That’s the key right there: we made mistakes,” said EUP coach Kris Bontranger. “You give teams extra outs, especially the first two out of the inning, there’s a good chance they’re going to have a big inning.

“It is what it is at this point. You’ve got to put your big boy pants on the rest of the way now. The one the kids can’t do is they can’t allow this game to control the rest of the tournament.

“They’ve got to show some maturity here and rebound and come back. They played a pretty good baseball game other than one inning, so that’s the way they’ve got to look at it.”

The Zone continues today and into the weekend in Escanaba and Gladstone.