Looper can't weather the Storm in loss

Lake Elsinore scored three runs off Aaron Looper in the sixth inning to beat Lancaster.

The offense hasn't looked great. It, however, wasn't the tattered lineup that ran into trouble on Tuesday, but the bullpen that has kept Lancaster in so many games this season.

Lancaster fell to Lake Elsinore 12-6 on Tuesday before an announced crowd of 1,876 at Pete Lehr Field.

Reliever Aaron Looper (2-2) entered the game in the sixth with the score 4-4, but could not keep the game tied, though, as he coughed up three runs in one inning of work, to give the Storm the lead and him the loss.

We needed some good pitching today,˛ Parent said. We just didn't get the help from the bullpen we needed.

We were just terrible on the mound today. Some of our guys acted like they've never been on the mound before.

Lake Elsinore (22-24) got to Looper for five hits in the inning, all singles, including run-scoring shots from Brian Specht and Bienvenido Encarnacion.

It was Looper's second consecutive ineffective outing out of the bullpen. On May 19, he was hit for six runs, five earned, against San Bernardino without retiring a batter.

Looper was relieved by southpaw Denny McDaniel who was tagged for four runs in two innings of work in the seventh and eighth, quashing all hope of a JetHawk comeback.

Starter Scott Atchison, shelled for six runs in his JetHawks debut last week in 3 2/3 innings, again ran into trouble early.

After getting a 4-0 first-inning lead, Atchison gave up one run in the second and four more in the third.

In the third, Elpidio Guzman dropped a two-run homer over the 30-foot wall in right field and Mike Christensen added a two-run single to put the Storm ahead.

The JetHawks bounced back to tie the game in the fourth on a sacrifice fly from Terrmel Sledge that scored Corey Freeman to knot the game at 5-5 and keep Atchison out of the decision.

To start the seventh, Lancaster loaded the base with no outs on three straight singles, but after a pair of strikeouts the team scored one run in the inning.

"We had a chance to do some damage and score some big runs in that inning but couldn't get the ball in play," Parent said. "You have to make contact when you need to drive in a run. With a strikeout nothing happens.

`Everything after that was irrelevant. That pretty much sunk our ship."

The JetHawks sent nine batters to the plate in the first as they jumped ahead 4-0 on the back of a two-out rally.

Catcher Scott Maynard capped the inning's scoring with a tworun double that plated Craig Kuzmic and Harvey Hargrove.

Uploaded May 24, 2000