Eagles fight back for win

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- When you have 5-2 lead going into the fifth inning, you don't expect to lose the lead. And certainly, you don't think that you will come within one run of being 10-runned.

That is what happened to Fairmont Monday afternoon.

The Cardinals held a 5-2 lead against New Ulm going into the bottom of the fifth, and watched the Eagles score seven runs in the inning and then add five more in the sixth to run their South Central Conference mark to 11-0 and 13-3 overall with a 14-5 win.

Drew Waibel was the winning pitcher in relief of starter Craig Spelbrink, who gave up all five Cardinal runs in his 4 2/3 innings of work.

Andy McFarland was touched for the loss for Fairmont (6-11, 3-6), giving up six runs. Olaf Jorgenson gave up the three runs and Ben Bremer yielded the final five runs.

Tony DeBerg and Adam Schmidt each had two hits for Fairmont.

Scott O'Brien and Al Wurtzberger each had two hits for the Eagles, with Wurtzberger driving in three runs and O'Brien tagging a double and triple. Isaac Larson blasted a two-run home run for the Eagles, who play today at St. James in a 5 p.m. SCC finale.

New Ulm had taken a 2-0 lead on the Cards after two innings when Wurtzberger walked, took second on a Spelbrink groundout and scored on an error on an Andy Stolt ground ball. Stolt came home on a Mitch Stueber double.

But Fairmont picked away at Spelbink and the 2-0 lead, cutting it to 2-1 in the third when Tony DeBerg doubled, took third on a wild pitch and scored on a groundout.

The Cards then took a 4-2 lead the next inning. One run scored on Andy Halvorsen's bloop single, with DeBerg's two-run single lifting the Cards to that lead.

Adam Schmidt's RBI single in the fifth ended Spelbink's day on the mound.

"I asked a lot of (Craig) Spelbrink after pitching on Friday in the cold," said Eagle head coach Jim Senske. "You could tell from the beginning that he did not have much of a fastball; he did not have a lot of velocity and he could not get his breaking pitch in. He did a good job for only having three days rest."

But thanks to a great relief job by southpaw Waibel, who was nursing a sore left elbow and a team that could, at least today, turn it on just in time, the Eagles avoided a costly loss that may have cost them in the Section 2AAA seedings.

"We came today lackadasical; everyone was down," said Eagle catcher Al Wurtzberger. "We thought that it was going to be a cakewalk because we won big down there. Sometimes, a team throws a slow pitcher at us and we have a tough time hitting him."

That was the case, but even a slow pitcher has to throw strikes. And, in the fifth inning, McFarland, who had given up just two hits, did not.

He walked both Stueber and Jamie Hoffmann to start the fifth. An error on an Evan Jacobs' bunt score one run. After a strikeout, O'Brien tagged a 1-0 McFarland offering for a game-tying two-run triple. Wurtzberger then delivered what turned out to the eventual game-winning single.

Jorgenson came in and walked two batters and hit one before giving up a two-run single by Hoffmann for a 9-5 New Ulm lead.

The Eagles scored five more in the sixth off Bremer on a Wirtzberger two-run double, a Matt Schmidt single and Isaac Larson's blast deep over the fence in right field.

"We were flat and thought that it would be an easy win," said Senske. "But they came back and have come back this season. But we need to come to play each day. When you get into section play, you can't let up."

FAIRMONT 001 310 0 -- 5 11 2

NEW ULM 020 075 x -- 14 9 1

WP--Waibel, LP--McFarland. 2B--Stueber (NU), DeBerg (F), O'Brien (NU), Wurtzberger (NU). 3B--O'Brien (NU). HR--Larson (NU).