In his first meeting against the Whitecaps on April 12, Patterson tossed a scoreless 6.1 innings and collected five strikeouts in the no-decision and was hoping for similar success again Wednesday night against the cross-state rival. The 23-year-old righty bested his previous performance by pitching for a career-long seven innings of scoreless baseball to collect six strikeouts and walk none for his second win of the season.

Even though Patterson did not allow a run in either of his contests against the Whitecaps, he noticed a difference from the mound.

“In the first inning I found out that they kind of changed up their approach against me from the last time we played them,” Patterson explained after the game. “I threw a lot of fastballs (in the first game) and made them really try and turn on the ball, but today they were actually looking to turn on the ball. So I had to change game plans and go with a lot of change-ups and two-seam fast balls to the outside corner and let it run away from them a little bit more.”

The adjustment was the right move and allowed Patterson to limit the W-Caps to four hits. He tossed 77 pitches, 53 for strikes, before he was relieved by Brant Stickel and Pete Budkevics.

“I felt good, my legs were a little gone from me [because of the bus ride], but body-wise I felt good and felt like I could have gone the nine innings if I had to,” he said “But we’ve got a good bullpen that came in and cleaned it up and did well.”

The Loons first scored in the second inning, finding one run on a single to shallow centerfield from Jon Garcia. The home team picked up another run in the fifth inning when Blake Dean hit a single to score Christian Lara who reached on a triple to left field. Loons centerfielder Leon Landry hit the second triple of the game to lead off the seventh inning. Lara was hit by pitch and both base runners moved into scoring position on a Nathan Newman wild pitch before scoring on Dean’s single for the 4-0 lead. Dean and Garcia led the team offensively, each going two-for-four and combining for four RBI.

The Loons, who move to 17-10 with the win and are 7-3 in their last ten, will play game two of their three-game series against the West Michigan Whitecaps on Thursday. RHP Zach Lee (3-0, 1.09) will make his sixth start for the Loons and will pitch opposite LHP Antonio Cruz (0-3, 3.80) of West Michigan. Thursday also marks Nouvel Catholic Central’s High School Spirit Night.