After a game plagued by defensive mistakes, FHC varsity baseball fell to Grand Rapids Christian 7-4 Saturday afternoon. Scoring early in the second inning, Grand Rapids Christian caught fire as soon as they possibly could. FHC’s defense allowed several more runs later on in the game.

Although FHC did not perform on the defensive side, they still managed to hit the ball well but came out with four total runs. The first run put up by FHC was from sophomore shortstop, Adam Tellier. Adam stood out as a contributor all game with two of the four runs for the Rangers.

“We really wanted to win the championship, and we were trying to come out strong,” Adam said. “It wasn’t happening today I guess. Next time we play them we can fix our mistakes. The mindset I had today was just to get on base really and score some runs to help the team. We did make a few errors on defense, but we will just have to bounce back next game.”

Small ball was the dagger to the Ranger infield, as GRC scored four runs off bunts alone. The pitching effort was led by Johnny Irish and Brett Vanwagoner who combined for just three strikeouts against the Eagles. The two also gave up seven runs, but only one run was earned.

On the offensive side, junior Miko Rodriguez came up big.

“I just wanted to get the job done for the team,” Miko said. “Whatever we have to do to get the win. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen today. We’ll come back swinging next week. I think right now our defense has some kinks, but we’ll work it out. We can get back to where we were a few weeks ago, where everyone was contributing. We’ll get back to it; I’m not worried.”

As for coach Mark Rasmussen, the game needed to be slowed down. He thought the team needed to settle it down and re-adjust to generate the outcome they had hoped for. Coming off of a long winning streak, the Rangers look to continue their early success.

“We put ourselves in a hole,” Rasmussen said. “We allowed four unearned runs in one inning. Our biggest goal is to make routine plays. You can’t expect to beat good teams when you make 6 errors. We have a great team. I feel very confident in our ability.”

The designated hitter, junior Jake Heilman also agrees that the atmosphere of the hitters is becoming more negative. To alter the mood, the hitting coming from Jake, Miko, and Adam boosted the negativity. This brought more encouragement and desire to come out more solid as a team and individually.

“We came out a little bit flat,” Jake said. “There were a couple plays that didn’t go our way right away and it kind of took the wind out of us a little bit. Johnny pitched okay, and he didn’t have much defense behind him.”

After consecutive losses, FHC looks to return to their winning ways.

“We just need to slow the game down,” Rasmussen said. “Our biggest goal going forward is to play great defense and be more aggressive at the plate. We have too many hitters who are getting into negative counts.”