sports

FOSSTON USES BIG SIXTH INNING TO BEAT CROOKSTON BASEBALL

May 3, 2022

The Crookston Pirate Baseball team finally got to play their first game of the season and it happened to be one of the top teams in Section 8A, the Fosston Greyhounds in a game played in Erskine. Fosston used a big sixth inning to beat Crookston 10-4.

Fosston got things going in the first inning when Cullen Norland reached on an error, stole second base, and advanced to third base on a pass ball. Norland scored on a Tommy Simonson sacrifice fly to centerfield for a 1-0 lead. Crookston’s George Widman singled and advanced to second in the bottom of the first inning, but was stranded there and Fosston had a 1-0. lead after one inning.

In the top of the second inning, Fosston had runners on first and second base with two outs, but the Pirate’s Alex Longoria struck out the next batter to get out of the inning.
Ethan Boll led off the bottom of the second inning with a walk before he stole second base. After two strikeouts, Austin Trinkle reached on a fielder’s choice and everybody was safe. The next Pirate batter flew out to left field and Fosston still held a 1-0 lead.

In the top of the third inning, Fosston’s Cullen Norland reached on a Crookston error before Aaron Norland singled to centerfield and runners were at the corners. The Greyhounds stole second base and on the throw to second, Ashton Larson injured his throwing arm forcing the Pirates to change catchers. The Fosston baserunner was safe at second and runners were at the corners. The next batter grounded out to first base where the only play Pirate first baseman Jack Doda had was to get an out at first while a run scored. Noah Mahlen hit a flyball to shallow centerfield and the Pirates dropped the ball on a running try and another run came into score. The runner advanced to second on a wild pitch and then moved over to third on a pass ball. Crookston got out of the inning when Blake Melsa fielded the ball at short and just beat the Greyhound at first and Fosston led 3-0.

In the bottom of the third inning, Crookston’s George Widman reached and stole second before advancing to third base on a throwing error. Longoria walked and tried to steal second base and the Fosston player couldn’t field the throw and the ball went into centerfield and Widman scored from third base. Longoria tried to steal third base after a pitch went in the dirt, but the ball didn’t go far enough and the Fosston catcher threw the ball to third base to get Longoria and Crookston trailed 3-1 after three innings.

In the top of the fourth inning, Fosston had runners on first and second base when Aaron Norland doubled to score two more runs for a 4-1 lead.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, Crookston’s Jackson Demarais and Cade DeLeon both walked to put runners at first and second with nobody out. Fosston decided to go to the bullpen and brought Mahlen in to pitch. After a strikeout, Noah hit a ground ball to the second baseman, and on the throw to the shortstop covering second base the ball was dropped and everybody was safe. With bases loaded, Gunnar Gunderson was hit by a pitch to score a run and Crookston was within a 4-2 deficit. After a Pirate strikeout, Alex Longoria hit a fly ball to right field and the ball was dropped allowing two more runs to score to tie the game at 4-4. “I like how the guys responded,” said Coach Butt. “They kept playing hard and didn’t give up when we got down early.”

Crookston brought in Jack Doda to pitch the top of the fifth inning. Fosston had runners at first and second with one out. Doda struck out the next batter for the second out before getting a ground out to third base and the game was still tied 4-4.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, Jackson Demarais reached on an error as the sun was setting and the throw from the pitcher to first base was lost in the sun and Demarais advanced to second base. DeLeon followed with a sacrifice bunt to advance Demarais to third before the next batter struck out for the third out of the inning and the game was still tied at 4-4. “We manufactured some runs today,” said Pirate Coach Scott Butt. “We didn’t expect to come out and knock the cover off the ball in the first game so it was nice to see the guys execute and manufacture some runs.”

In the top of the sixth inning, Cullen Norland started with a line-drive single to centerfield. A few pitches later he stole second base and the throw to second went into centerfield allowing Norland to advance to third base. Aaron Norland drew a walk before stealing second base and with runners at second and third base, Thomas Simonson singled in two runs and advanced to second on the throw home. Fosston had a 6-4 lead. Fosston kept it going as Mahlen helped his own cause with a double to left-center field to score a run for a 7-4 lead. Mahlen advanced to third on a throwing error on the play before scoring on a wild pitch for an 8-4 lead. With a runner at second base, Keegan Senger smashed a groundball through the infield to score another run and the Greyhounds led 9-4. Josh Manecke kept the solid at-bats going as he singled and Jacob Gutterud walked to load the bases, but Crookston finally got out of the inning with a ground out to first base. “That inning hurt us,” said Coach Butt. “They hit some balls hard and strung them together and give credit to their batters.”
Crookston’s Blake Melsa walked in the bottom of the sixth inning, but they weren’t able to take advantage of the baserunner and Fosston took a 9-4 lead into the final inning.

In the top of the seventh inning, Fosston added an insurance run with an infield single, a stolen base, and a ground out by Mahlen to score a run for a 10-4 lead.
Crookston was retired in 1-2-3 fashion in the bottom of the seventh and Fosston won 10-4. “Fosston is one of the top teams in Section 8A and we get to see where we are against a quality team so that is good for us,” said Coach Butt. “I thought we did a lot of things well, and some other things not as well including some errors. It is the first game and we will get to practice tomorrow before another game on Thursday.”

Crookston drops to 0-1 on the year and will host another top team in Section 8A on Thursday when they host Sacred Heart at 6:30 p.m. Fosston improves to 2-0 on the year.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
Fosston	1	0	2	1	0	5	1	10	11	3
Crookston	0	0	1	3	0	0	0	4	4	7

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K
Alex Longoria-Crox	4.0	3	4	0	2	5
Jack Doda – Crox (L)	1.0	6	5	2	2	2
Spencer Ness – Crox	2.0	2	1	1	3	1
Cullen Norland – Fosston	4.1	2	3	0	6	5
Noah Mahlen – Fosston (W)	2.2	2	1	0	1	7