TONTOGANY — Lake’s baseball team is one step closer to a league championship.
The Flyers had a big fourth inning and pulled away from Otsego to post an 8-4 win Wednesday.
With the victory Lake improves to 19-4 overall and 9-2 in the Northern Buckeye Conference, one league win
away from clinching at least a share of the NBC title.
“We knew it was going to be a battle,” Lake coach Greg Wilker said. “It gives us a two-game lead on
everyone with three to go. So we know what we need to do, and we’re just going to go play and have fun.”

Lake’s Ryan Kohlhofer got the offense jump-started in the first inning with a two-run homer to left. The
home run came on a 3-2 count on the 10th pitch of his at-bat to give the Flyers a 2-0 lead.
“He fouled off some real tough pitches that a lot of high school kids probably would have struck out on.
He just battled and battled. He hit a mistake and he hit it hard and it just carried out of here,”
Wilker said. “I didn’t think it was going to clear it, but luckily it did.”
Otsego’s Hunter Donald hit a solo home run in the second to cut the lead to 2-1.
Lake added a run in the third when Nathan Scanlan led off the inning with a single and eventually scored
on an RBI groundout by Casey Conine to make the score, 3-1.
The Knights then answered in the third with an RBI single by Nathan Hackworth to make the score 3-2.
Hackworth would eventually score on a wild pitch later in the inning to tie the game at 3-3.
Lake’s offense would explode in the fourth, scoring five runs on five hits to build its lead to 8-3.
Corey Hotmer, Jake Materni, Thomas Nichols, and Josh Tantari each had a hit for Lake in the inning.
Otsego would score one more run in the fourth to cut the lead to 8-4, but that would be as close as the
Knights got the rest of the way.
“The kids battled. We dug ourselves a hole. We had one bad inning, and it was hard to come back when you
play a good team like that,” Otsego coach Aaron Myers said. “Overall, we stayed in the game mentally,
but dug ourselves a deep hole.”
Materni picked up the win in relief, pitching a scoreless final four innings. Scanlan and Materni
combined to allow just four hits in the game.

“We just pick each other up. That’s what good teams do, and Jake Materni came in and just threw strikes
and we made some nice plays behind him. That’s the name of the game,” Wilker said.
Tantari, Hotmer, and Materni each had two hits for Lake, and Conine drove in three runs. Kohlhofer and
Nichols each had two RBI for the Flyers.
“It’s a good win. It was a team effort. We all contributed. That means a lot,” Kohlhofer said. “It helps
kind of secure the spot for us.”
Max Miller had two singles for the Knights, and Donald’s home run was Otsego’s only extra-base hit in the
game.
Otsego is now 10-10 overall and 6-4 in the NBC. The Knights play Elmwood in a sectional final on Saturday
at Elmwood.
“It was a very big game. It’s kind of a shame that it happened when it did, because we’re right in the
middle of sectionals and we didn’t throw our No. 1 (pitcher) and they didn’t throw their No. 1,” Myers
said.
“(Lake) had a game on us so we had to come out and get them, and they did a great job dropping the hammer
on us.”
Lake can clinch an outright title by winning two of its final three league games. The Flyers host
Woodmore on Friday.
“We can get the first NBC title, and we got the last (Suburban Lakes League) title last year. So it would
mean a lot to us and coach Wilker,” Kohlhofer said.
BASEBALL
LAKE 8, OTSEGO 4
LAKE
201 500 0—8 10 2
OTSEGO 012 100 0—4 4 4
BATTING LEADERS
HITS — (L) Tantari 2, Hotmer 2, Materni 2, Conine, Kohlhofer, Nichols, Scanlan; (O) Miller 2, Hackworth,
Donald. 2B — (L) Conine. HR — (L) Kohlhofer; (O) Donald. RUNS — (L) Tantari 2, Kohlhofer, Hotmer,
Vancena, Materni, Nichols, Scanlan; (O) Peper, Hackworth, Donald, Thomas. RBI — (L) Conine 3, Kohlhofer
2, Nichols 2, Tantari; (O) Donald, Hackworth, Peper. SB — (L) Tantari, Conine. SAC — (L) Witt; (O)
Austin. HBP — (O) Thomas 2 (by Scanlan), K. Vollmar (by Materni). DP — Otsego 1, Lake 1. LOB — Lake 3,
Otsego 7.
PITCHING SUMMARY
IP H R ER BB SO
LAKE
Scanlan
3 2 4 4 4 3
Materni (WP) 4 2 0 0 1 0
OTSEGO
Hackworth (LP) 6 10 8 6 0 4
K. Vollmar
1 0 0 0 1 0