Kingsford junior Jack Spreen fires a pitch against Westwood Tuesday afternoon. (Ron Deuter photo)

KINGSFORD – Kingsford rallied in the late innings after trailing by five runs but came up short in a comeback bid against Westwood Tuesday afternoon at Lodal Park, falling 8-7 for a seventh straight loss to open the season.

The tying run was left stranded in the Flivvers’ final at-bat, as freshman Colin Olsen was a just a few feet away from a game-winning walk-off homer when he drove a 1-0 pitch to the alley in right center field that was caught nearly up against the fence for the final out.

Kingsford plated four runs in the bottom of the fifth to make it a 6-5 contest and had scored twice in the seventh to answer two more runs by Westwood in the top of the sixth.

Kingsford found itself in a big hole during the second inning when things fell apart defensively. After retiring the first two in that frame, a couple of hit batsmen and a pair of errors allowed Westwood to rack up six runs for an early 6-1 lead.

The Flivvers committed four errors in the game.

“You won’t win baseball games when you make mistakes,” Flivvers head coach Joe Kriegl said. “We made too many mistakes in this one, big mistakes, huge mistakes. We have to get better or it’s going to be a long season.”

With a plethora of young arms this season, the margin for error is thin for Kingsford. Junior Bradlee Bottesi started for Kingsford but was chased during the big second inning. Junior Jack Spreen took over from there and was steady in relief, allowing five hits and two earned runs while striking out eight over the final five and a third innings.

“You have to take care of all the little things,” Kriegl said. “We have not been doing any of the little things correct. Our pitching isn’t deep enough to shut teams out. We’re going to give up runs. Spreen did well pitching, but again we had some defensive stuff that happened that killed us. He did a nice job though, and that’s the thing, we have to get these guys experience, get them through it regardless of if we win or lose because we’ll need that experience down the road.”

Kingsford’s 1-2-3 hitters recorded all six of the team’s hits. Freshman Luke Rice had two hits including a RBI double during the seventh-inning rally. Senior Jack Kriegl had two singles and two runs scored. Junior Logan Grondin drove in four in the game, the big blow coming with a two-out triple to right to clear the bases in Kingsford’s four-run fifth after a Westwood error extended the inning.

“We’re going to be better,” Kriegl said. “It stinks right now because this program is used to winning, but our focus needs to be building for down the road. That has to be our goal. We just have to work on getting better each game.”

Kingsford’s JV team improved to 2-0-1 with a 15-2 smackdown over Westwood. A six-run first inning and a seven-run third had the Flivvers out to a 13-1 lead. Olsen, sophomore Carter Steber and sophomore Alex Larson each had two hits, with Steber collecting three RBIs. Freshman Ian Hensley added a RBI double, and sophomore Chace Jungles had a triple. Freshman James VanDusen earned the win on the mound, tossing three innings of one-hit ball with five strikeouts and no walks.