Jeff Chaney
Sports Scene
Bullock Creek’s Keegan Akin likes to pitch under pressure.
That’s a good thing, because he had a lot of it during the Tri-Valley Central Conference championship game against Shepherd.
A couple times the left-handed junior found himself in trouble, but he battled through it and helped the Lancers clinch their first league title since 2008 with a 2-1 10-inning win.
In that game, Akin pitched nine innings, striking out an astounding 16 batters.
“Honestly, I love the pressure,” he said. “I had bases loaded with no outs against Shepherd, and I srtuck out the next three guys. All they had to do was a suicide squeeze to win the game. So I gave myself a little more pressure than I needed there. And then we got ourselves in some trouble defensively, but we battled through it.”
Akin is now 8-0 with a 0.29 ERA on the year. He has struck out 118 opposing batters and has walked just 32.
Bullock Creek is now 25-4 and heads to this year’s MHSAA Division 2 state tournament with a lot of confidence.
The Lancers will open up tournament play June 2 against the winner of the Freeland/Mount Pleasant game at Alma High School.
“We need to get through our first game,” Akin said. “Our first game will be one of our toughest games, so we need to get through that one and go. It’s going to take all nine of us to win it.”