76th Article at the Independent

PREP BASEBALL: Minneota holds on against RRC/WWG, 9-6

CHRIS DRUMMOND cdrummond@marshallindependent.com

MINNEOTA — Despite it being its third and fourth games of the week, respectively, the Minneota and Red Rock Central/Westbrook-Walnut Grove baseball teams showed no signs of slowing down during their matchup on Friday, but the Vikings were able to hold on late and earn a 9-6 victory.

The Falcons struck first by getting a two-run lead in their very first at-bat of the inning. The Vikings would respond by netting four runs in the next inning behind some timely hits. The Vikings continued to put pressure on the Falcons, though, scoring three runs in the fifth inning including a home run by senior first baseman Jayden Gamrak who just came back off of an injury per Vikings head coach Keven Larson.

The Falcons would not quit as they made things interesting late. Coming into their last opportunity down six runs, the Falcons sliced the deficit to three with clutch hitting. The Falcons had two runners on and the tying run at the plate, but the Vikings struck out the batter to secure the victory.

Larson spoke about the grit of the team and performance in the game.

“We had three games this week and we were on the road last night, we gutted it out today,” Larson said. “Can’t say enough about our pitching, I was impressed. Our starting pitching has been great all year and our defense played well.”

The Falcons were coming off a doubleheader victory the night before and RRC/WWG head coach Derrick Jenniges spoke on the team’s performance in the loss.

“Well we had some good outs even though we struck out looking a few times, something that we don’t want to get used to,” Jenniges said. “To have the tying run at the plate a couple times in the last inning, it’s our fourth game of the week in the spring, we’ll take that every week.”

Jenniges added on what he would like his team to work on.

“We had four sophomores and a freshman in the starting lineup,” Jenniges said. “There is still a lot of baseball knowledge that we have to practice and improve on. They have been working hard and we will look forward to playing three times next week.”

No stats were available at press time.

Minneota will travel to Tracy to face off against the Tracy-Milroy-Balaton Panthers next Thursday evening at 4:30 p.m. while RRC/WWG will host MCC next Tuesday at 4:30 p.m