ESCANABA — As longtime Detroit Tiger radio announcer Ernie Harwell often said when teams missed scoring chances ‘they threatened, but did not score’.

Mikey D’s Beer Cave left four baserunners in scoring position here Monday night before dropping a 1-0 baseball decision to vastly-improved Negaunee-based Hubbard’s Marsh.

Austin Wachniki scored the lone run on a passed ball in the second inning of this Superiorland League match-up at Al Ness Field on this warm and muggy evening.

The victory enabled Hubbard’s Marsh to improve to 4-1. Mikey D’s dropped to 5-2.

“We’re going for the top seed,” Hubbard manager Brian Coleman said. “We worked pretty hard in the off-season, and right now we have a lot of momentum. We’re recruiting people who love the game and want to be here.”

Mikey D’s best scoring chance took place in the fourth when it stranded baserunners on second and third. The local team also left runners on second in the third, and sixth when player/manager Ben Snyder led off by reaching second base on a throwing error with nobody out.

“We didn’t get the timely hits, but that’s baseball,” he said. “We’ve been in little bit of a slump the last two weeks, although I think we’ll come out of it.”

Hubbard’s had a chance to extend its lead in the fourth, but left runners on the corners.

The winners elected to pitch by committee, using three hurlers who scattered four hits and combined for 11 strikeouts.

Elliot Danhoff became the hardluck loser despite throwing a one-hitter. He struck out a dozen, including six in a row in the fourth, fifth and sixth frames, and allowed two walks.

“We have a lot of pitching which keeps the pressure on other teams, and I think the humidity helped our breaking ball,” Coleman said. “He (Danhoff) is a lights-out pitcher. You feel fortunate to score a run against him. We were supposed to be playing in Gwinn, but we love playing down here. This is a real nice field.”

Hubbard’s ends its regular season at Channing, which was expected to be among the league leaders. The Railroaders, however, are struggling with low numbers this season.

“They’re still good on the field,” Snyder said. “They’re usually in contention. They’re always tough. We could see them (Railroaders) in the playoffs.

“Elliot pitched heck of a game tonight, but when you score zero runs, you can’t win. I have confidence in our guys. We’ll be all right. All three of their guys pitched great. They kept us off balance. We had to keep adjusting to their pitching.”

Mikey D’s returns to Al Ness Field for its regular-season finale against the Marquette County Mavericks Monday at 7 p.m.

The league playoffs begin Aug. 11.