After a slow start, the Lyle/Pacelli baseball team showed some of the big strides it has made this season this season as it lost to Glenville/Emmons 8-3 in its season finale at Marcusen Park Tuesday.

The Wolverines (13-5 overall, 9-1 SEC), who clinched a conference title with the win, racked up five hits in the first inning to take a 5-0 lead.

While G/E hit the ball well, it also took advantage of a couple of overthrows by L/P.

“We’ve just got to believe in ourselves,” L/P head coach Dan Zielke said. “If you throw out the first inning and we get a couple calls our way, it’s a different ball game. They should’ve come out with just two runs there.”

After the slow start, L/P relief pitchers Jonah Rohne and Jordan Hart slowed down the Wolverine bats. Hart allowed just two earned runs and Rohne struck out five and allowed just two hits.

Zielke has a lot of confidence in Rohne and Hart, who are both eighth graders, as L/P prepares for the subsection 1A West Division tournament, which begins next Tuesday.

“Jonah will be our guy next week. We’ll take him as long as we can go and Jordan will be our number two,” Zielke said. “They both did a good job of keeping us in it today.”

L/P (6-10 overall, 4-6 SEC) had runners on first and third with nobody out in the first when Carter Guthmiller grounded into a double play that scored one run but ended the threat. L/P left runners on first and third in the fifth and it left the bases loaded in the seventh.

“They had a nice pitcher on the mound today and he threw a lot of strikes,” Zielke said. “We just couldn’t get the ball out of the infield really. But it was good to see we put the ball in play a lot.”

L/P had just three hits and one of those came from Hart when he doubled in two runs with a shot into left field in the fourth to make it 6-3.

The Athletics will most likely be a No. 8 seed and have to take on the No. 1 seed on the road next Tuesday, but they feel they have a chance, especially after knocking off Randolph last Friday.

“We’ll bounce back and play tough next week,” Zielke said. “We’re going to try to be competitive and throw somebody off. We’re going to see how far we can go.”

GE 5 0 1 0 2 0 0 — 8 11 3

LP 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 — 3 3 4

L/P pitching: Kevin Juenger (L), 1 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 1 K; Jordan Hart, 3 1/3 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 3 R, 2 ER, 1 K, HBP; Jonah Rohne, 2 2/3 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 5 K

L/P hitting: Kyle Meyer, 1-for-2, R, SB, 2 BBs; Drew Chapek, 1-for-3, R, BB; Carter Guthmiller, 0-for-3; Skylar Meyer, 0-for-2, R, BB; Jordan Hart, 1-for-3, double, 2 RBIs; Sean Shapiro, 0-for-3; Matt Kasel, 0-for-3; Jake Nelson, 0-for-2; Rohne, 0-for-3; Teddy Emery, 0-for-1