Jul. 17—PAYNESVILLE — Paynesville and New London-Spicer met a handful of times during the American Legion baseball season. However, Friday’s game felt different being a District VI Division II playoff matchup.
Still, it finished with a similar outcome with Paynesville taking the win, 6-3, advancing to the next round.
Friday’s game could be described as being a perfect time for summer playoff baseball: 82-degree weather with a soft breeze, the sun giving the Paynesville Baseball Park a nice glow without being a distraction.
With both teams having met multiple times within a short timespan, both teams were competitive from the first pitch to the final out.
“This is the third time in eight days that we’ve faced New London-Spicer, so we were very familiar with them and they were very familiar with us,” Paynesville coach Rick Hendrickson said. “We knew it was going to be a tough game and we were fortunate enough to get a lead right away.
“But give them credit, they battled back and we knew they weren’t going to give up. They’re well coached. [Eric Terres] is a great coach. He does a great job and the kids respond well to him.”
Paynesville found its scoring in the bottom of third with Tanner Stanley, Tori Olmscheid and Gavin Miller reaching home.
In the fourth, Eli Nelson reached home followed by Abe Bullard and Stanley, who both safely slid into home.
“We were just well prepared,” Hendrickson said. “Our guys play a ton of baseball throughout the summer … our guys were just ready to play and getting out to a lead right away just made a world of difference.”
New London-Spicer rallied with Cole Dolezal and Konnor Rohloff scoring back-to-back runs in the fourth inning and Gavin Degner scoring in the sixth on an error.
The rally ended there for New London-Spicer, resulting in its summer season coming to a close.
The loss marked New London-Spicer’s fifth loss to Paynesville this season.
“Getting down six-nothing is obviously not ideal,” Terres said. “We kept battling, we left a heck of a lot of guys on base, which is always a tough pill to swallow. But, it’s baseball.”
Terres described what he told his ball club following the loss to Paynesville.
“I just told them we got to work in the offseason, just can’t be good where you’re at. You have to compete. This is the fifth loss to Paynesville this year and I told them I hope that hurts a little bit. That should really fuel the fire for next year.”
With what Terres says is a younger roster, he is confident in what his team can do next season.
“We’re the only team that has competed in this area without a senior on the roster,” he said. “We’re strictly incoming sophomores and incoming juniors, so we’re young. After the game I told them I’m excited for next year. We have a lot of young guys that want to compete and get better.”
For Hendrickson, his proudest achievement from Friday’s victory came in the clutch defense in the closing innings.
“Our kids responded well in the later part of the innings in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings when they were making a little bit of a run. We were able to battle through and pitchers threw enough strikes to get us through and we made enough plays on defense to get out of the innings.
“It was a good win, that was a good win in the playoffs and we keep moving forward to Atwater. We know we’re going to have a tough game over there too.”
Paynesville battles Atwater at 6 p.m. Saturday at Kingery Field in Atwater.
District VI
Paynesville 6, NLS 3
NLS 000 200 10-3 4 1
Paynesville 033 000 0x-6 3 4
Hitting — NLS: Aeden Andresen 1-5 rbi, Bennett Schultz 1-3 bb, Luke Ruter 0-3 hbp, Gavin Degner 1-3 r bb sb, Riley Lessman 1-4, Cole Dolezal 0-3 r bb, Konnor Rohloff 0-2 r hbp-2, Kaidin Yeo 0-0 hbp, Gabe Rohmann 0-2 bb … Paynesville: Grayson Fuchs 0-3 rbi, Eli Nelson 2-3 r, Abe Bullard 1-3 r, Tanner Stnley 2-2- r-2 bb, Gavin Miller 0-2 r rbi bb, Bennett Evans 1-3 rbi-2, Chase Bayer 1-3 sb
Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so) — NLS: Lessman (L) 1-2-3-1-2-0, Rohmann 2-3-3-3-0-3, Degner 3-2-0-0-0-2 … Paynesville: Fuchs (W) 5-3-2-0-4-6, Evans 2-1-1-0-0-1
Regular season
New Ulm 6, Willmar 0
Four New Ulm Gold pitchers held Willmar to two hits for the victory at Johnson Park in New Ulm.
Jett Salonek went 1-for-3 and Sam Etterman was 1-for-2 for Willmar.
Cole Ranweiler was 3-for-4 with a run and three RBI for New Ulm Gold.
Willmar 000 000 0-0 2 1
New Ulm 001 050 0-6 9 0
Hitting — Willmar: Jett Salonek 1-3, Hunter Magnuson 0-2 sac, Alex Schramm 0-2 bb, Sam Etterman 1-2, Carter Schow 0-1 bb … New Ulm: Jackson Bode 1-3 r 2b sac, Hunter Sehr 0-3 r bb, Cole Ranweiler 3-4 r rbi-3, Carter Lang 0-3 r bb, Jaden Drill 0-2 rbi bb, Tony Geiger 1-3 rbi 2b, Josh Giefer 2-3 rbi, Jack Albrecht 2-3 r-2
Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so) — Willmar: Etterman (L) 3-4-1-1-0-0, Andrew Baumgart 1-4-5-4-2-0, Dylan Arndorfer 2-1-0-0-1-3 … New Ulm: Ethan Stade 3-0-0-0-0-1, Sam Keckeisen (W) 2-1-0-0-0-3, Sehr 1-0-0-0-0-0, Geiger 1-1-0-0-2-0
District VII
West Central East
Glenwood-Lowry 3,
Long Prairie 0
Mitchell Gruber pitched a no-hitter to lead Glenwood-Lowry past Long Prairie in the West Central East playoffs at Elrosa.
Gruber struck out seven and walked one. Glenwood-Lowry played errorless ball.
Gruber also went 1-for-3 with a double and a run. Darion Alexander went 2-for-3 with a triple, a run and an RBI.
Glenwood-Lowry is the top seed. Long Prairie is the fourth seed.
Long Prairie 000 000 0-0 0 1
Glenwood-Lowry 100 002 x-3 5 0
Hitting — Long Prairie: Kris Hanson 0-2 bb … Glenwood-Lowry: Mitchell Gruber 1-3 r 2b, Torii Johnson 0-2 r bb, Darion Alexander 2-3 r rbi 3b, Aaron Ver Steeg 1-3 rbi, Dylan Alexander 1-2 rbi, Dalton Friedrichs 0-2 hbp
Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so) — Long Prairie: Tye Urman (L) 6-5-3-2-1-7 … Glenwood-Lowry: Gruber (W) 7-0-0-0-1-7
Late Thursday
Tri-Town 7, Paynesville 3
Tri-Town advanced in the District VI Division II playoffs with the win over Paynesville at Kingery Field in Atwater.
Connor Barker went 3-for-3 with a double, a run and three RBI to lead the Black Sox. Josh Kingery, Josh Kinzler and Logan Straumann all added two hits for Tri-Town.
For Paynesville, Grayson Fuchs went 1-for-2 with a double, a run and an RBI.s.
Paynesville 001 001 1-3 3 3
Tri-Town 400 120 x-7 10 2
Hitting — Paynesville: Grayson Fuchs 1-2 2b r rbi, Tori Olmscheid 1-3 rbi, Tanner Stanley 1-3, Abe Bullard 0-3 r, Chase Bayer 0-2 r … Tri-Town: Connor Barker 3-3 2b r rbi-3, Josh Kingery 2-3 2b r-2, Josh Kinzler 2-3 r, Logan Straumann 2-3 rbi-2, Jaxon Behm 1-3 r, Keegan Kessler-Gross 0-3 r rbi, Hayden Straumann 0-2 rbi, Tucker Johnson 0-0 r
Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so) — Paynesville: Eli Nelson (L) 3-5-5-4-1-5, Olmscheid 2-4-2-0-1-1, Stanley 1-1-0-0-1-0 … Tri-Town: Kingery (W) 4-2-1-1-0-5, Jack Peterson 3-1-2-1-1-1
Junior Legion
Starbuck 7,
Tri-Town 2
Austin Ballhagen, Jack Larson and Austin Weber all had two hits to help lead Starbuck past Tri-Town at Glenwood
Jonas Morrison, Logan Serbus and Blake Bolton had hits for Tri-Town.
Tri-Town 020 000 0-2 3 1
Starbuck 000 051 x-7 11 0
Hitting — Tri-Town: Jaxon Drange-Leyendecker 0-2 rbi bb-2, Jonas Morrison 1-3 r bb, Logan Serbus 1-2 r bb, Hunter Dahline 0-0 rbi bb, Blake Bolton 1-1 … Starbuck: Blake Andreas 1-4 r sb, Gavin Gain 1-2 r, Nathan Dell 1-2 2b, Austin Ballhagen 2-2 r rbi-2, Jack Larson 2-4, Thomas Poegel 1-3 r rbi sb, Alex Panitzke 1-3 r rbi-2, Austin Weber 2-3 rbi, Ryland Martin 0-2 r bb sb, C. Stein 0-1 r bb-2
Pitching (ip-h-r-er-bb-so) — Tri-Town: Keegan Kessler-Gross (L) 6-11-7-7-3-7 … Starbuck: Martin (W) 4-2-2-2-5-7, Weber (Sv) 3-1-0-0-0-3