AVON LAKE — Senior Kevin Morrissette didn’t even think about getting one more at-bat Wednesday afternoon as Avon Lake tangled with Southwestern Conference rival Olmsted Falls.

Morrissette doubled, tripled and homered in leading the Shoremen to a 4-3 victory over the Bulldogs. All Avon Lake’s second baseman needed was one more chance to single for the cycle but he gladly traded the cycle for the victory as the Shoremen held off Falls’ last­inning rally. “I was seeing the ball real well,” Morrissette said. “(Falls) was throwing me outside a lot. I just wanted to go with the pitch.” “He took what they gave him,” Avon Lake coach Jeff Stratton said. “I told the team we need to go to school on that. (Falls pitcher Cam Trefny) wasn’t try­ing to do too much. He was just throwing the ball outside. Hit the ball where it’s pitched.”

Morrissette followed orders. The big blow was his two-run opposite-field bomb with two out in the bottom of the fourth inning that broke a 1-1 tie.

There was nothing cheap about the drive as it cleared the fence in right-center with plenty to spare.

“Like he said, he’s seeing the ball real well,” Stratton said. “He’s eight for his last 10 (at-bats), a home run, two triples, a double — he’s feeling it right now.”

“Morrissette really put some nice swings on the bat,” Olm­sted Falls coach Dan Largent said. “He was a game-changer for them. We lost some focus early on. It’s been our problem. Once this team gets hot, we’re going to be OK.”

The Shoremen added what proved to be the game-winning run in the fifth as winning pitcher Tyler Beck singled off Jared Kurz’s glove to start the inning.

T.J. Thompson followed with a bloop double that stayed fair down the third­base line. Connor DeLong was hit with a pitch to load the bases and Ryan Rodgers hit a sacrifice fly to score Beck.

That run proved to be huge as Falls rallied for two runs and had the bases loaded in the top of the seventh before Thomp­son struck out Cory Maddocks looking to end the game. Falls’ catcher Chaz McGrain quick­ened Stratton’s pulse when he hit a long foul ball that missed being a three-run homer by just a few feet right after David Valenzuela’s bloop two-run single pulled the Bulldogs to within one run.

McGrain flied to center a pitch later for the second out of the inning and Thompson walked Erik Kolar before get­ting the final out.

“Initially, right off the bat, I was a little worried,” Stratton said of McGrain’s loud foul. “But I knew it was an off­speed pitch. I thought he was out ahead of it. It was just a strike and as a pitcher, that’s how you have to look at it.”

Avon Lake improved to 6-4 overall and 2-2 in the SWC. Olmsted Falls fell to 5-4 and 0-3. “We gave ourselves a chance,” Largent said, “but we made too many mistakes early in the game to put ourselves in that situation to begin with.”

Beck (2-0) scattered four hits through six innings before running out of gas to start the seventh. Thompson wasn’t exactly lights out in relief but maintained the lead to pick up the save. Both are seniors.

“He struggled a little bit in the first inning,” Stratton said of Beck. “He settled down. He’s been real solid all year. I was going to go to T.J. (to start the inning) but (Beck) said he felt pretty good and wanted to fin­ish it. After the first guy got on, he said he’s not feeling it. That’s a hard thing for a kid to say.

“He has the team in mind. T.J.’s been in that situation before. We had all the confi­dence in the world in T.J.”

Contact Tim Gebhardt at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.

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