St. Mary's decisions Loyola,

will meet crosstown rival ...

By PAUL DUNLAP

Journal Sports Editor

MANKATO -- Andy Konz was a quite a relief for the Sleepy Eye St. Mary's baseball team Tuesday.

Konz threw 6 1/3 innings of two-hit ball, and the Knight bats exploded for 12 hits as St. Mary's defeated Mankato Loyola 9-3 in opening-round action of the Section 2A Tournament at Franklin Rogers Park.

The Knights, now 13-9 on the season, will face Sleepy Eye High at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Franklin Rogers Park.

"Andy came in and did a great job, and our offense was able to take advantage of some opportunities to get him some runs," St. Mary's coach Bruce Woitas said. "When you can pitch with a four- to six-run lead most of the time you're going to be pretty effective. (Konz) was on the plate, didn't hurt himself at all, and the guys made the plays behind him. A super job."

It didn't look super early on, though. Three straight hits, including a Chad Armbruster RBI single, gave the Knights a quick lead before the Crusaders came to bat in the first. St. Mary's starter Dan Schwartz was victimized by three walks, two hits, and one huge error that gave Loyola a 3-1 lead with two outs.

That's when Konz was inserted and he responded by getting Dan Pollitt to pop out to short to end the inning. After that, the only other Loyola hits in the game were a pair of singles -- Tony Rotchadl in the fourth and Mark Woodward in the seventh.

"Dan was coming back off a little bit of a sore arm from his last outing," Woitas explained. "We thought we'd see how it went, but he struggled early on. Konzie came in and got us out of that inning, really settled in, and pitched a great game from that point on."

The Knights scored another run in the second as Steven Eckstein hit a ringing double off the fence in left-center and scored on John Pelzel's bloop hit, then took the advantage for good in the third. Adam Armbruster singled off eventual losing pitcher Ben Schwamberger and Chad Armbruster drilled a 3-2 curve ball over the 320-foot sign in left. Chad ended the game 3-for-4 with a homer, a double and three RBI.

"Our top four or five guys have been right around that .400 (batting average) range," Woitas said. "If you can get that consistently, you're going to have a chance to score some runs. Today, we were able to do that."

The lead was extended to 7-3 in the fourth as reliever Jamie Mulvihill had to endure a two-run single from Adam Armbruster. Two straight wild pitches would plate Konz from second for the four-run edge.

The final two runs came in the sixth on a Schwartz RBI single and a Mulvihill balk that scored Chad Armbruster.

Konz finished his outstanding outing by striking out four and walking two in addition to yielding those two hits. Schwamberger yielded six runs on seven hits through 3 1/3 innings in the loss.

Adam Armbruster also had three hits in the win, with Konz and Eckstein adding two apiece. No Crusader had more than one hit.

SE ST. MARY'S 112 302 0 -- 9 12 3

LOYOL A 300 000 0 -- 3 4 2

W--Konz. L--Schwamberger. 2B--St. Mary's, Eckstein, C.Armbruster. HR--Sleepy Eye, C.Armbruster.