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UMC BASEBALL FALLS TO MINNESOTA STATE-MANKATO IN CONFERENCE FINAL FOUR

The University of Minnesota Crookston (UMC) had a couple of mistakes that proved to be costly as Minnesota State-Mankato took advantage scoring eleven unearned runs on their way to a 15-9 victory in the first game of the four-team double elimination portion of the NSIC playoffs. “You play against a team like that in a tournament like this and you don’t play defense, you don’t win baseball games,” said Golden Eagles Head Coach Steve Gust. “That’s part of the problem, but not the whole problem.”

Mankato got off to a good start with one run in the first. After UMC’s starting pitcher Jake Dykhoff (Jr. Wadena) got the two batters out, a double and a single brought in the game’s first run.

Mankato got right back on the board in the second inning with six runs. A one-out walk got thing started and the next batter hit a ground ball to third. UMC looked at trying to turn two but the throw to second was not caught and allowed both runners to advance safely. A flyout got the second out and then the Mavericks did their damage. A three-run homer scored the first three runs of the inning. Then, a double, single, and walk loaded the bases. A wild pitch and a double brought scored three more runs to give Mankato a 7-0 lead. All six runs in the second inning were unearned. “We had chances to make pitches after the errors today and we didn’t,” said Coach Gust.

Dykhoff came out of the game after two innings of work as he has been battling some back soreness. “Give him credit. He was hurting and still tried to go out there and he gave what he could,” said Coach Gust. Alex Koep (Fresh. Parkers Prairie) came in and pitched very well. He put up four scoreless innings to hold down the Mankato offense while the UMC offense started a comeback. “He threw well for us today and as a true freshman to give us four scoreless innings that says a lot about him,” added Coach Gust.
In the top of the fourth, the Golden Eagles got on the board for the first time with a couple of runs. After the first two batters were retired, UMC brought out their two-out bats with Will Zimmerman (Sr. Park River, ND) reached on an infield single and got to second on a throwing error. Scott Finberg (Sr. Stillwater) was hit by a pitch and Jake Hjelle (Fresh. East Grand Forks) singled to right to score Zimmerman and a bobble in right field allowed Finberg to score all the way from first to make it 7-2.

UMC continued their comeback in the sixth inning with three more runs. Zimmerman led off with a double and he scored on Finberg’s double. Finberg scored on another RBI single from Hjelle to make it 7-4. The next two batters struck out and then a two-out walk prompted a pitching change. Ben Bryant (Sr. Fargo, ND) was the first batter to face the relief pitcher and the first pitch he saw he hit into right field to score Hjelle to make it 7-5. A four-pitch walk loaded the bases for the Golden Eagles, but a strikeout prevented a bigger inning. “We were able to overcome the big deficit and we were right where we wanted to be,” said Coach Gust. “We make one more play and we probably have a chance to win at the end.. but that’s baseball.”

UMC went down 1-2-3 in the seventh before Mankato broke the game back open with five more unearned runs in the bottom of the seventh. A walk, sacrifice bunt, and another walk put two runners on with one out. A diving play in left field by Landyn Swenson (Sr. Devils Lake, ND) saved an extra base hit and a couple of runs for the time being. With two outs, it looked like the Golden Eagles would get out of the inning on a ground ball, but a high throw to first extended the inning and a run came in to score on the play. After a walk loaded the bases, Mankato’s next batter sent a ball over the right field fence for a grand slam to make it 12-5 through seven innings. “We had too many leadoff walks and just some things that we can clean up,” explained Coach Gust.

Mankato added on some insurance runs in the eighth inning. With two runners on and one out, a three-run homer gave the Mavericks a 15-5 lead after eight innings.

UMC was able to put a little bit of a rally together with Mason Ruhlman (Sr. Algonac, MI) walking and Brock Reller (Sr. Grand Forks, ND) singled, to set up Zimmerman’s three-run home run to right field. After a pitching change and a strikeout, Hjelle produced another run with a line drive, solo home run to make it 15-9. The Golden Eagles got a two-out single, but nothing else as they fell by that score. “Our offense scored nine runs so you can’t fault our offense, but we could have scored more,” added Coach Gust. “They threw out some good pitchers with some good stuff… there were times where we just missed a pitch or were maybe too anxious at the plate at times. We could have scored more runs today and that’s saying a lot against this Mankato team.”

FOR THE BOX SCORE, CLICK HERE.

UMC is now 25-11 overall this season. The Golden Eagles are now in a win or go home situation the rest of the NSIC tournament. They will play on Thursday at Noon against St. Cloud State, who lost to Augustana University 8-2 tonight. “Our guys know what we have to do better. We learned some things and we will sure those things up and we will be ready to play tomorrow,” added Coach Gust. If UMC wins the game at noon they would play a second game on Thursday at 6 pm. The UMC games at NOON and IF they are in the 6:00 PM game on Thursday, they both will be on KROX RADIO.
Minnesota State-Mankato improves to 35-7 this year. They advance to the winner’s side of the bracket and will face Augustana University.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
UMC 0 0 0 2 0 3 0 0 4 9 11 2
Mankato 1 6 0 0 0 0 5 3 0 15 13 2

 

Pitching IP H R ER BB K
Jake Dykhoff- UMC     (LP) 2.0 6 7 1 2 2
Alex Koep – UMC 4.0 3 0 0 3 5
Brody Sorenson-UMC 0.1 0 2 0 2 0
Tyler Hegg – UMC 0.1 1 3 0 1 0
Jayden Grover – UMC 1.1 3 3 3 2 0
Nick Altermatt- Mankato   (WP) 5.2 5 5 4 2 8
Jon Ludwig – Mankato 2.1 2 0 0 1 5
Nathan Culley – Mankato 0.0 2 3 3 1 0
Trevor Divinski – Mankato 1.0 2 1 1 0 2


For UMC
Will Zimmerman- 3-5, 3 runs, 3 RBI, double, home run
Jake Hjelle- 3-5, 2 runs, 3 RBI, home run
Eli Jung- 2-5, double
Scott Finberg- 1-4, 2 runs, RBI, double

For Minnesota State-Mankato
Ty Denzer- 3-6, 1 run, 6 RBI, 2 doubles, home run (grand slam)
Joey Werner- 3-6, 2 runs, 3 RBI, double, home run
Ross Indlecoffer- 2-6, 3 runs, double
Teddy Peterson- 2-4, 3 runs, 3 RBI, home run

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