By Wendi Reardon Price
Clarkston News Sports Writer
Oxford — Clarkston Varsity Baseball closed the season by one run in the MHSAA Division 1 District 30 Semifinal game to Oxford in the seventh inning, June 4.
“I don’t think we really played our best, but the few times we were down we were able to battle back and competed,” said Addison Turk, head coach. “It was an entertaining game to say the least. Whenever we play Oxford it’s usually always going to be close games, highly competitive and this one was no different.”
The Wolves opened the district final with two runs when Ben Bacon hit a double at the top of the first inning.
Oxford tied the game at the bottom of the first inning. They took the lead in the second inning with three runs, putting them up 5-2.
Mason King brought the Wolves up with two runs off his hit in the top of the fourth inning.
Clarkston defense quickly shut down the Wildcats at the bottom of the inning, catching the hits from the three batters.
The Wildcats would score next in the fifth inning with one run to lead the game, 6-4.
Brady Krzciok hit a double in the seventh inning for two RBIs to tie the game, 6-6.
The game closed when Oxford hit a double at the bottom of the seventh to win the game, 7-6.
Krzciok had three doubles for the day. Bacon and Carson White each had a double. Luke Spicer pitches for 4.1 innings and had one strikeout. Trevor Busyn had five strikeouts.
The Wolves opened the district playoffs with a 9-4 win over Waterford Kettering, May 31.
King had two RBIs off his three hits and Lucas McKinney had two hits. Busyn pitched for five innings and had six strikeouts. Spicer had two strikeouts.
“It was good,” said Turk. “We put up 15 hits. We had six guys who had multi hit games. Trevor and Luke pitched well and held them to four runs and we were able to come out on top.”
Clarkston finished the season 17-12.
“It was a success to a certain degree,” said Turk. “We didn’t achieve the goals we wanted to but I think for the first time in awhile we finished above .500 in the league. When you do that in our league with how competitive it is, I think you can call that a success. Once again towards the end of the year we were playing our best baseball – it’s what you always want as a coach. We just fell a little bit short.”
The team graduated nine seniors.
“Talented group of kids,” Turk said. “We knew as they were getting to us, coming up through freshman and JV, it was a pretty talented class and frankly I think they restored the reputation of Clarkston Baseball a little bit with their play. This year was a success in that regards because they took the reins and the leadership. They are going to be missed for sure.”
Turk added with a successful season and close game to finish the year, the underclassmen should be hungry.
“It’s one of the things you think about at the end of the season – the sophomores and juniors should be hungry to do better than whatever we achieved this year and hopefully it happens,” he said.

  Baseball, District