Norway’s Brett Turini, left, slides safely into second base as Iron Mountain’s Zach Spera, right, applies a tag on Saturday, April 28, 2018, in Iron Mountain, Mich. (Adam Niemi/Iron Mountain Daily News)

IRON MOUNTAIN — Norway came away with a pair of wins in a three-team tournament on Saturday at Ranger Field.

The Knights beat Niagara 4-3 in the second game of the day and then downed Iron Mountain 7-1 in the finale.

Iron Mountain beat Niagara in the first game, 6-3.

“We hit the ball. It all comes down to that. You put the ball in play and good things happen. We had some shots. We’d been looking at good pitching all afternoon and finally — finally — we’re starting to get bats on the ball,” Norway head coach Randy Van Gasse said. “With our speed, if we can do that we can beat stuff out. I’m not going to kid anybody, there were some errors that played large in today’s game. We didn’t take advantage of them, let’s put it that way. It’s going to show up as a hit but it probably should’ve been an out several times. We’re fortunate. We had solid competition. These were very competitive ballgames, both of ours.”

Iron Mountain hung with Norway until the Knights blew the doors open with a five-run fifth inning. An error to start the inning doomed the Mountaineers. The Knights ignited with three hits including triples by Dante Pedrotti and Payton Thompson. Thompson scored on the play when an Iron Mountain fielder dropped the ball on the relay throw to home.

The Mountaineers made three errors on the day including two against Norway.

“Second game, too many errors. Way too many errors. The hitting was fine,” Iron Mountain co-head coach Paul Julian said. “They all hit well, but too many errors. We had two or three five-out innings. Not happy, we’re going to work on that. There’s some non-chalanting going on, we’re going to work on it.”

Norway’s Trey Doda and Adam Faull were 2 for 3.

Iron Mountain’s Gavin Goulette doubled in the second inning to score CJ Dantes.

Caleb Johnson pitched for Iron Mountain, giving up eight hits and seven runs (five earned) with seven strikeouts and one walk.

The Knights loaded the bases and scored with four straight hits before Johnson struck out three straight batters to halt the rally.

“Caleb Johnson’s throwing seeds. He’s really come a long way,” Julian said. “He’s got several different pitches to choose from. We’re happy with him. He also pitched an outstanding game. If we didn’t have a few errors out in the field, we would’ve been good.”

Dante Pedrotti pitched five innings for Norway, giving up one run on three hits with seven strikeouts and one walk. Micah Wilson closed out the sixth with a strikeout in a 1-2-3 inning.

Game 2

Norway 4, Niagara 3

A three-run fifth inning propelled Norway in a 4-3 win over Niagara in the second game.

An error put Hunter McCarthy on base to open the inning and a pair of hits by Gannon Bray and Faull took the lead from the Badgers.

Niagara gave Doda a challenging day on the mound, staying patient at the plate and collecting four hits. Six Badgers batted in the first inning, scoring a run. They added another in the second and fourth innings.

Doda tossed 68 pitches before leaving in the third inning as Bray stepped in to relieve. Micah Wilson came in to close out the sixth. The three pitchers combined for 11 strikeouts and three walks.

“We didn’t hit the ball that well today,” Niagara assistant coach Ryan Allred said. “We’re just trying to get all the pitching we can for postseason regionals. Now we start conference play. We had some errors, but we’re putting young kids in some different positions. You’re going to have those mistakes. We’re trying to figure it out until we get to postseason.”

Game 1

Iron Mountain 6, Niagara 3

The Mountaineers struck first with two runs to open the first inning en route to a win over the Badgers.

Johnson collected two RBIs with a double in the first and a fielder’s choice that scored Jacob Maxon.

Blake Julian tossed 4 1/3 innings and gave up three runs on five hits with five walks and nine strikeouts. Johnson pitched 1 1/3 in relief, striking out two and walking one.

Tristan DeJardin started for Niagara. He gave up six runs (five earned) on five hits while striking out five and walking six. Josh Weber pitched an inning, walking one with a strikeout.

Extras

Norway assistant coach Mike Maule passed away last week. Van Gasse talked with the team after the last game about memorializing Maule on their jerseys somehow. The team settled on having his initials on the left sleeve.

“What a guy. Mike really had a passion in life. If it wasn’t his grandchildren, it was working with all these kids. He’d been at it for 30-something years and been with our program for eight years,” Van Gasse said. “Kids really loved Mike. They knew how much baseball meant to him. It’s rare that you find somebody that is that passionate about a sport that can really influence kids. We’ve had kids down at the field who graduated a couple years ago he coached and they were just sitting at the field going through their Mike memories. Mike was a good guy and he loved baseball.

Van Gasse kept Maule as an assistant when he took over in 2015.

He’s been my pitching coach. Mike was the guy when I first took over four years ago I’d watched. My son played on the team the first year. I watched baseball games as the superintendent. Mike didn’t screw anything up, so I said what the heck, pitching is kind of my specialty but I’ll give him the pitchers and I never regretted it.”

Game 1

Iron Mountain 201 210 — 6 5 1

Niagara 200 100 — 3 5 3

Game 2

Niagara 110 100 — 3 4 1

Norway 000 13x — 4 4 2

Game 3

Iron Mountain 010 000 — 1 3 2

Norway 001 15x — 7 8 1