FRUITPORT – The high-flying Fruitport baseball team finally experienced defeat on Tuesday when it split a conference doubleheader with a good Calvin Christian squad.
But the day could have been worse – and a lot less entertaining – it if hadn’t been for junior slugger Trevor Rusnak.
The bulky Trojan broke a 0-0 tie in the fifth inning of Game 1 with a two-run homer to left-center field. That propelled the Trojans to a 3-0 victory and kept their record perfect at 11-0.
Rusnak also brought some spark to Game 2, when Fruitport trailed 3-0 in the fourth and was struggling to get anything going. He blasted another shot over the fence in left-center field for another two-run homer, pulling the Trojans within a run at 3-2.
Rusnak added a long RBI sacrifice fly in the bottom of the sixth, again bringing the Trojans within a run a 4-3.
In the end it wasn’t enough, and Fruitport lost its first game of the season, 5-3. But there was no denying that it was another big day for Rusnak, who now has five homers on the season, including three in a doubleheader against NorthPointe Christian earlier this month.
“I am no longer a freshman on varsity putting a lot of pressure on myself, like I did,” said Rusnak, who finished the day with five RBIs. “I just go up there thinking, hit the ball. I am just thinking about putting it in play and moving the runners, like I’m supposed to do. If it goes out, it goes out.”
Fruitport head coach Nick Reed said Rusnak, who hits right-handed, has learned to spray the ball around with power this season.
“Last year he would just be a straight pull hitter down the left field line,” the coach said. “Today he hit those two monsters to left-center, then before he went to center, right center and right field. I think he’s become a better hitter sometimes with two strikes. He’s tough to strike out and he just drives the ball.”
The doubleheader split was a new experience in more ways than one for the Trojans, who have been trouncing opponents since the beginning of the season. Coming into Tuesday, Fruitport had outscored its opponents by a whopping margin of 151-11. Then they ran into a Calvin Christian team with good pitching, strong defense and the ability to play small ball and manufacture runs.
It led to a pair of close games and finally a loss for Fruitport, which is now 11-1 overall and in O-K Silver conference play. Calvin Christian ended the day with a 6-3 conference record.
“We learned some things about ourselves today,” Reed said. “We won the first game when we didn’t play our best, then we made a couple of mistakes in the second game that cost us some runs. But we’re going to learn from it and get better from it. If we lose one game and win the conference, I am okay with that.”
The first game was scoreless, and Fruitport only had one hit until the bottom of the fifth, when Dexter Lillmars led off with a single, then Rusnak ignited the crowd with his first home run blast of the day, putting the Trojans up 2-0.
Fruitport got another run in the bottom of the sixth when Ryan Bosch singled and scored on an RBI double by Tommy Anderson.
Bosch, a senior who is headed to pitch at Wake Forest University next season, was brilliant on the mound, allowing two hits and three walks while striking out 13 in six innings of work.
Junior Avery Lambers pitched a scoreless seventh inning and the Trojans wrapped up the shutout victory, its sixth of the season.
Anderson led the offense with two hits.
Game 2 was similar, and could have ended differently, but the Trojans made a few big mistakes in a few key innings and played from behind for most of the contest.
Calvin Christian scored first in the top of the second inning with a walk and a bunt single that advanced the lead runner all the way to third. The runner at first broke for second base in the next at-bat, and the Trojans caught him in a rundown, but the runner on third scored and put the visitors on the scoreboard.
The Squires added two runs in the top of the third. It started with a one-out walk, followed by a grounder to third that turned into a big play when a Trojan throwing error left runners at the corners. Levi VanNamen then hit an RBI groundout to make the score 2-0.
The next batter, Luke Bykert, hit an RBI double to give the Squires a 3-0 advantage.
The Trojans got on the board in the bottom of the fourth, which could have been a bigger inning than it turned out to be.
Bosch and Anderson led off with singles, then Lillmars popped to shortstop and a Fruitport runner strayed too far from second base and was doubled off, leaving the Trojans with a runner at first and two outs.
Rusnak salvaged the inning with his second round-tripper of the night and the Trojans pulled within a run at 3-2.
Calvin Christian added a run in the fifth on an RBI groundout to make the score 4-2.
The Trojans had a big chance to take the lead in the bottom of the sixth inning when they loaded the bases with one out on singles by Bosch, Anderson and Lillmars. Rusnak followed with an RBI sacrifice fly, making the score 4-3, but Fruitport failed to push across any more runs.
Calvin Christian added one more run in the top of the seventh with a bunt single, a Fruitport throwing error and an RBI sacrifice fly by Josh Goodheart.
Fruitport failed to score in the bottom of the seventh, and the Trojans experienced their first loss of the season.
Bosch finished with three hits for Fruitport while Anderson and Lillmars added two apiece.
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