ATTICA — A well-established program like Seneca East doesn’t need assistance to win baseball games.

Bucyrus didn’t take that into account. The Redmen committed five errors, which led to seven unearned runs, as the Tigers defeated Bucyrus, 15-5 in five innings, in a Northern 10 Athletic Conference game at Lamoreaux Field.

“A couple of times we hit the ball hard right at them,” Seneca East coach Rick Bowerman said. “They had some boo-boos and we took advantage of the boo-boos.”

The defensive trouble for the Redmen started in the bottom of the first inning. Jacob Hall led off with a single for the Tigers, but an error, a hit batter, a wild pitch, a balk a single by Tyler Turek, and another error plated four runs.

“One thing is we can’t start off the first inning with three errors,” Bucyrus coach Sean Maudsley said. “We weren’t mentally ready to play. I think we played very well after that.”

The Redmen offense began to chip away and get them back in the game. Kael Scott led off the second with a single, went to third on a single by Trevor Ley and scored on a wild pitch.

After Seneca East (7-3, 5-1 N10) added two runs in the bottom of the second — on two walks and a double by Turek to make it 6-1 — Bucyrus closed the gap.

The Redmen batted around in the top of the third. Nic Middleton and Kaden Middleton led off with walks. Bucyrus added hits by Noah Parker and Lucas Kozinski, a walk to Lincoln Mollenkopf and two Tigers’ errors to score three runs and pull within 6-4.

“It’s a good thing we were hitting the ball,” Bowerman said. “Our pitchers struggled with the strike zone and that one inning, we struggled fielding the ball.”

From there, it was all Tigers. A five-run fourth inning resulted from back-to-back singles from Hall and Turner Bridgford, RBI singles by Hunter Martin and Andrew Kalb and two more Bucyrus errors, to make it 11-4 Tigers.

“Our pitchers threw strikes, that’s what we ask them to do,” Maudsley said. “We’ve got to make plays. We had three double play ball that we booted and made errors on and that really hurt. That’s a momentum killer.”

The Redmen added a run in the fifth on walks to Ley and Mollenkopf, a Kozinski single and a two-out RBI walk to Kaden Middleton.

In the bottom of the fifth, however, the Tigers drew three walks, got a double by Ricky Lacy and an RBI single by Kalb to plate four runs and shorten the game to five innings.

“That inning we struggled defensively, we came back out and put things back together and did what we needed to do,” Bowerman said. “We put runners on, but our pitchers focused up and we were able to get some strikeouts.”

Lacy doubled and scored four times for Seneca East. Turek doubled and singled and scored three runs, Hall singled twice and scored three, while Bridgford singled and scored three runs. Turek, Martin, Chase Foos and Kalb each batted in two.

Turek started on the mound and went four innings. He gave up four runs on four hits, walked four and struck out five.

“I thought our approaches at the plate were really good tonight,” Maudsley said. “We’re really battling. Turek pitched a lot of pitches. I think he had 95 when he left after four. We really worked him, fouled off a lot of pitches.”

Kozinski started for Bucyrus, giving up nine runs — only five earned — on five hits. The junior right-hander struck out two and walked two in three innings of work.

Kozinski also had two hits and Scott, Parker and Ley singled. Scott scored twice and drove in one.

“We did some good fundamental baseball. A couple of times with a guy on second, we hit the ball to the right side, and we got some steals,” Bowerman said. “We didn’t play real well last night (a 12-9 loss to New Riegel). Defensively, we really struggled. We kind of turned that ship around tonight.”

“We knew coming in that they were going to be fundamentally sound, they’re not going to make many mistakes, so you’re going to have to not make many mistakes,” Maudsley said. “You’re going to have to play with them, hit with them, and pitch with them. I thought we hit with them, we pitched with them. I didn’t think we fielded with them, though, and that was kind of the difference.

“We’re making little strides, we’re getting better,” Maudsley added. “I feel this team has the capability of making big leaps because I think we’re better than what we’re playing.”

Box score

Bucyrus      013 01X X   5 5 5

Seneca East 420 54X X   15 9   2

WP: Tyler Turek (5 SO, 3 W)

LP: Lucas Kozinski (2 SO, 3 W)

HR: None.

Triples: None.

Doubles: (SE) Ricky Lacy, Tyler Turek.

Multiple hits: (B) Lucas Kozinski; (SE) Jacob Hall, Tyler Turek, Andrew Kalb.

Records: Bucyrus 2-6 (0-4 N10); Seneca East 7-3 (5-1 N10).

Next: Mansfield St. Peter’s at Bucyrus, Thursday; Seneca East at Crestline, Thursday.