Kentwood baseball succumbs to big inning in loss to Riverside
Published 5:52 pm Tuesday, May 5, 2026
With a ton of anticipation and expectations, Kentwood baseball was in a four-way tie for the last three playoff spots in the 4A NPSL.
The Conks took on Auburn Riverside in their final series of the season — Auburn Riverside is also one of the four teams searching for one of those three playoff spots.
Auburn Riverside hung on and rode a big third inning to down the Conks on May 4 in game one of that series 7-4.
It was an unexpected result for Kentwood as they could not have started off any better. The Conks scored a run in the first and two in the second to throw the first punch against the Ravens.
“It was great to see us come out swinging the bat well. We put together some good AB’s, we had our senior night Friday and it was pretty quiet offensively. So I challenged them to have better approaches tonight and they answered,” head coach Scott Richards said.
Cassius Culpepper doubled and scored a run on an Ethan Heidal two out single for the game’s first run. Then in the second inning, Kentwood could have threatened to put up even more than just two runs.
Kentwood loaded the bases with no outs in the inning, Cael Miller singled home a run and eventually Cody Hippolito singled home another run. With one out, Culpepper looked to have hit a sac fly, but Ryan Leninger was caught too far off second base for a double play, ending the threat.
From there all momentum was with the home side. Auburn Riverside went on to score six runs in the third inning, aided by a couple of errors from Kentwood that extended the inning and allowed runs to score. Richards sighted that as a lack of focus.
“It’s something that we have been preaching all year, we’ve got to have a two out focus. That kind of got away from us. We had a tough situation with two outs and let it go,” Richards said.
Kentwood’s offense would go cold up until the fifth inning, where the top of the lineup got it started once again. Tucker Maurer hit a leadoff single, then advanced to third on an error by the pitcher Kaeden Morgan before Culpepper cashed in once again.
“I love to lead my team through war. Anytime I have the opportunity to come through big for those guys, I can’t wait for it,” Culpepper said.
Culpepper singled and Maurer scored, but an added insurance run in the bottom of the sixth from Riverside left Kentwood wanting more. In the seventh with the top of the order due up, all three hitters smashed the baseball. But each hitter took a right turn and headed back to the dugout.
“In baseball you can do everything right and still somewhat fail. We are going to keep our swings and keep doing exactly what we are doing and they’ll fall,” Culpepper said.
Against a difficult left-handed pitcher in Kaeden Morgan, Ryan Leninger picked up a pair of hits for Kentwood. “I like the aggressiveness out of him, jumping out on pitches early in the count and not let that guy get ahead of him,” Richards said.
The veteran Culpepper wants his group to have a quick memory heading into the regular season finale. “We got to keep the heads up. We put some good barrels on the ball. We just gotta keep the same approach and they’ll fall for us,” Culpepper said.
The Conks are in no way out of the playoff picture. With the Mount Rainier loss, all the Conks have to do is win game two against Riverside on May 6 to punch their ticket to the district tournament. “We just have to minimize the big innings. We can let anything crooked, when we have opportunities to get out of innings we gotta do it,” Richards said.
Kentwood will play their final regular season game on May 6 with first pitch at 6 p.m. at Kent-Meridian.
