Ishpeming pitcher Jackson Jarvis deliver a pitch during a Little League baseball District 11 Minors Division tournament game against Portage Lake on Monday at the Range Town Veterans Memorial Park in South Range. (Houghton Daily Mining Gazette photo by Daver Karnosky)

SOUTH RANGE — With three runs in the first, six in the second and nine more in the third, the Portage Lake All-Stars eliminated Ishpeming 18-1 on Monday in a Little League baseball District 11 Minors Division tournament game at Range Town Veterans Memorial Park.

Dane Guidotti and Zayne Benda both reached and scored in all three innings to help drive Portage Lake’s offensive outburst.

Considering that Portage Lake lost its tourney opener to Negaunee, 11-2, on Saturday, the Houghton- and Hancock-based squad was looking for a much better result Monday.

“That was much more fun than Saturday,” Portage Lake coach Daron Durocher said. “Negaunee’s really good. We knew we had an opportunity to hit the ball here, and kids got into the game and got to experience it, running the bases and all that good stuff.

“Got it over just in time for the rain. So it worked out pretty well there, too.”

For manager Josh Rich’s Ishpeming squad, unforced defensive errors proved costly.

“Lots of errors for us,” he said. “But we had a young team. We were really excited.

“The young kids make the throwing errors, and a lot of errors kind of puts us down, and it was hard to climb back out of it, you know?”

Just after PL finished celebrating on the field near their dugout because they would get to play again Tuesday, rain, which had been threatening for much of the game, poured onto the field.

Durocher was pleased with how his team performed, especially on the mound, where Brad Juopperi got the start and Eli Mayo pitched in relief, and behind home plate, where catcher Devin Lasanen was strong all game.

“(The) kids played well,” Durocher said. “Brad pitched pretty decent. Eli came in, I think he struck out all three. I was happy.

“Devin caught a really good game.”

Durocher mentioned that he was happy to see that Juopperi, who had been struggling in practice on the mound, stepped in and found his rhythm.

In relief, Mayo struck out the first two batters he faced and added one more to close out the game.

The big hits in the first inning were RBI singles by Guidotti, Benda and Mayo.

Ishpeming got one run back in the bottom half of the first. Liam Huetter led off with a walk, scoring on a Nolan Nault sacrifice two batters later.

From there, the game belonged to Portage Lake. Levi Heltunen had an RBI single in the second that helped make it 9-1, while in the third, PL got an RBI sacrifice by Evie Kuntze, run-scoring single by Chase Aho and two-run double by Lasanen.