Hammond, Ind. – Nothing seemed to go right for the MCL Minutemen (2-8) on a rainy Wednesday afternoon at Riverside Park. Both the offense and defense looked out of sync as the DuPage County Hounds (8-2) ran away with a 12-0 win in seven innings.

“We just came out slow from the start,” manager Jack Murphy said. “We had our chances to score, and we didn’t take advantage. They [DuPage County Hounds] did. Our approach at the plate was off and things just didn’t improve from the first pitch on.”

In their six turns at-bat, the Hounds scored in all but one inning. While they were limited to just one run in the first, third, and fifth innings, they put up crooked numbers in the second and fourth. Four and five-run outbursts respectively put things out of the Minutemen’s reach, sending at least eight batters to the plate in either inning. Two Hounds, Jackson Dvorak and Nick Zeeveld, both hit home runs.

However, despite the score, a few Minutemen players turned in performances to be proud of. Four batters reached base twice, including Ryan Missal (Western Michigan/Lowell, Ind.) who paced the team with two hits. Mike Koszewski (Cincinnati/Oak Brook, Ill.) drew two walks, increasing his league-leading total to nine. Brennan Brogni (Illinois-Springfield/Flagstaff, Ariz.) put together multiple highlight-reel plays at second base.

“In a loss like this, it’s really easy to look at the negatives,” Murphy said. “There were definitely some positives. Some guys did well individually and each and every player battled until the end. The effort level never dropped today; they should feel very good about that.”

The Minutemen look to quickly forget this loss as they head back to Hammond on Thursday, this time taking on the Southland Vikings at Dowling Park at 5 p.m. As the players try to get back into the win column, Murphy expects the team to go back to playing the style of baseball they played in their first nine games.

“Every day is a new day,” Murphy said. “We just have to take things one game at a time. Yesterday’s score does not matter to me when we take the field today. The only thing we can do is move forward and put all of our attention towards beating the Vikings.”

You can watch every pitch on the Southland Vikings Broadcast Network via Facebook Live. Jack Thiel and Ryan Zimmerman will be on the call.