WHITE LAKE >> Whatever happened in Saturday’s home doubleheader with South Lyon East, Lakeland was going to come out still within reach of South Lyon for the Lakes Valley Conference crown.

The Cougars played spoiler by taking the second game, 4-1, but Lakeland won the opener 3-2 to keep the race for the conference intact.

Lakeland took the opener in walk-off fashion. Drawing two walks to open the bottom of the seventh, the Cougars issued an intentional walk to load the bases with one out when Sean Latham put down a bunt that took one hop toward the first-base line that allowed fellow senior Ryan Johnson to score the winning run.

“That’s what Lakeland kids are all about, really,” Eagles head coach Brad Farquhar said of the small-ball tactics implemented in the victory. “We did not play our best game in the first game, either. We had trouble scoring some runs, but there was never any doubt we would handle things the way we should, and I was proud of the guys in Game 1 for finding a way to just score one more run than they did.”

Junior Ethan Yen, who singled to opposite field in his first at-bat of Game 1, drove one to left in his second at-bat to help score Brody Cutsinger and Johnson and give Lakeland a 2-0 lead in the second inning. Jack Vargo’s RBI single in the fourth scratched a run back, then the Cougars (10-11, 8-9 LVC) tied it in the fifth when Brayden Brothers singled with two outs and a full count, scoring Preston Shipman.

East got five strong innings out of Robert Booth despite the loss, while Nate Sanko struck out eight before Jack Miller pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings of relief for the Eagles to put them in position for the win.

In the second game, Lakeland’s arms struggled for control early, and its bats were held quiet.

After coming up empty despite two hits in their first trip to the plate, the Cougars cashed in for two runs in the second, first on a bouncing single that Evan Lowry beat out as Carter Hamilton scored, then when the Eagles turned a double play but Evan Urbin (three walks) crossed the plate.

Lakeland got one back in the bottom of the inning on a sacrifice fly that drove in Vijay Karanth, but that ended the scoring for the Eagles. East made it a two-run affair again with Shipman’s RBI double in the fourth, then added its final run of the day on a double to left-center field by Hamilton that brought across Vargo.

Following a slight advantage in the first game, the Eagles were outhit in the second half of the doubleheader, 10-3.

“We’re going to take a look at adjusting our offensive identity a bit and I think it’ll help,” Farquhar said.

“For whatever reason right now — and maybe it’s just a lull — we’re having trouble stringing three hits together. In baseball, that’s a problem when you don’t hit the ball over the fence.”

Dylan Klein went the first 2 1/3 frames for the Cougars in their win, and the trio of Jackson Hewitt, Logan Hale and Vargo combined for the scoreless relief effort.

“We had really great performances from our guys that kept us in tight ball games,” Cougars head coach Kevin Simono said. “They did what they needed to do.

“I think our hitters did a really good job of executing in spots late in that second game. They had really productive at-bats. We drew a lot of walks, took them deep into counts. Hitting-wise, we had reay timely hits.”

The Eagles came into Saturday at 11-1 in the LVC, while South Lyon sat atop the standings with a record of 15-0. The next closest teams to open the day, Walled Lake Western and Northern, each had seven losses, effectively making it a two-horse race even with more than a handful of games to play.

Despite South Lyon gaining another game of separation while remaining idle, Farquhar played down the idea of panic. “There’s a lot of league games left,” he said. “We’re going to stay the course, make some adjustments on offense, and like I said, I wouldn’t want to play us the first weekend of June.”

Lakeland’s three-game series with South Lyon is set for May 14-15.