MUSKEGON – Marsh Field is always electric when the Muskegon Clippers are in town, no matter the outcome.

But this season has a much different feel so far than during the team’s first four seasons in the Great Lakes Collegiate Baseball League.

The Clippers opened the 2023 season with a five-game home stand, and the team has played well in all aspects of the game.

Muskegon continued its strong play on Saturday, completing a perfect five-game homestand with a 6-2 win over the Royal Oak Leprechauns.

The Clippers’ Stony Smith, who had three stolen bases on Saturday’s win.

The Clippers are 5-0 on the season and have a two-game lead over three other teams in the league’s North Division. Muskegon will play its first road game on Sunday in Royal Oak against the Leprechauns.

“It’ s a breath of fresh air, and it’s exciting,” said second-year Clippers manager Logan Fleener about his team’s start. “It is a lot of fun to watch them play and they want to play hard and play fast. They want to win and if you can do that, you can finish a home stand 5-0.”

The key to victory for the Clippers was solid base running. The team combined to steal eight bases, led by Stoney Smith, who swiped three. Danny Passinault had two, while Brandon Scheurer, Aaron Piasecki and Sheehan O’Connor each had one.

“It’s more about what we do well,” Fleener said. “We have some guys who like to run, and we talked about before the game how we wanted to run.”

Muskegon’s Aaron Piasecki, who had three hits and stole a base. 

The Clippera jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning, scoring on an error by the Leprechauns’ pitcher and a sacrifice fly by Braden Benton.

Muskegon added two more runs in the second inning, the first on an error by the catcher during a stolen base attempt, which led to another run later in the inning on an RBI single by Scheurer.

The Clippers increased their lead to 5-0 in the fourth inning with an RBI single from Collin Cornwell.

Muskegon’s starting pitcher Matthew Hoover, who earned the victory, tossed a solid five innings, allowing just two hits while striking out eight batters.

The Leprechauns finally ended the shutout bid in the sixth inning on an RBI single by Tyler Yakimisky, then added another in the seventh with a hit from Brayden Dowd to cut the Clippers’ lead to 5-2.

Clippers pitcher Gavin Sitarz, who pitched four innings of quality relief. 

Royal Oak had a chance to add more runs with the bases loaded, but Muskegon relief pitcher Gavin Sitarz struck out Yakimisky to end the threat.

Sitarz pitched four innings of relief, allowing two runs on six hits while striking out four batters.

The Clippers closed out the scoring in the eighth inning on an RBI single by Piasecki.

“It was the first time we felt that we have lost momentum this season,” Fleener said. “Sitarz just gripped the ball and he went after the hitters. Then we added the final run to give us the four-run lead in the ninth instead of a three-run advantage.”

Piasecki and Passinault paced Muskegon with three hits apiece while Scheurer and Sam Lisiak each had two.