GAME 1: Grand Valley State 9, Parkside 2
GAME 2: Parkside 8, Grand Valley State 5
The Parkside baseball team split their Saturday doubleheader against Grand Valley State after taking the opener Friday night. The Lakers took control of game one early, and cruised to a victory. In game two, the Rangers fell down 4-1 early, but mounted a comeback in late innings, capped off by a go-ahead two-RBI single from redshirt-senior Casey Oliver in the eighth inning.
 
GAME 1 RECAP
Parkside fell down early when the Lakers scored a run in the second inning, and then busted the game open with six more in the fourth off of Parkside starter Matt Helwig. The Rangers got their first hit of the game in the bottom of the fourth on a solo home run from redshirt-senior Austin Emanuel. The Green & White scored their second run in the in the sixth when Emanuel walked, senior Dominic Esposito singled, and senior Carlos Arteaga singled in Emanuel. The Lakers extended their lead to 9-2 in the seventh with a two-hit, two-run frame off of Ranger reliever Jake Macaluso, who had pitched two scoreless innings to that point.
 
GAME 2 RECAP
The visitors used the momentum from their game one win and scored runs in each of the first four innings. However, the Ranger bullpen stifled the Laker offense from then on. Redshirt-freshman Chris Conrad, who came on at the end of the fourth, pitched 2.1 scoreless innings. Parkside was down 5-3 heading into the innings Conrad pitched, but they ended 5-5 by the time he came out. They scored one run in the fifth on an RBI double from Emanuel, and scored another in the sixth, this time on a safety squeeze bunt from redshirt-junior Kurt Mlachnik that scored redshirt-senior Nicholas Eisenmenger.
 
The Rangers got more solid innings out of the bullpen when senior Alex Saunders entered the game in the seventh, and pitched two scoreless innings. Saunders struck out four of the six batters he faced. In the bottom of the eighth Parkside took the lead on Oliver's go-ahead single, and then extended it to three when Esposito singled home Oliver. Emanuel moved from third to the pitcher's mound with an 8-5 lead in the ninth, and shut down the Laker offense for his second save in as many days.
 
A LOOK AT THE BOX SCORE
Aside from notching the save, Emanuel had a monster day at the plate, going 5-for-8 with a home run, a walk and three RBI. Senior Garrett LaBreche also had a nice day at the plate, finishing 2-for-6 with three walks and four runs scored.

WHAT'S NEXT
The Rangers will go for the series win tomorrow at 2 p.m. Next weekend, the team will welcome Ashland for a four-game series starting on Friday, April 30 at 3 p.m. The team will be celebrating senior day between the doubleheader on Saturday.