Maple Grove defeats VFW Gold 11-1 in five

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- When a pitcher gets the ball up -- especially against a good hitting team -- bad things happen.

Maple Grove plated five first inning runs and then pushed across four more in the third as the Crimson improved to 2-0 in the Junior Upper Midwest Classic with an 11-1 win over the New Ulm VFW Gold Friday afternoon.

The game was stopped in the bottom of the fifth when Maple Grove scored two runs for a 10-run lead.

Nick Patrow recorded the pitching win for Maple Grove, allowing four hits while striking out five.

J.J. Germscheid took the mound loss for the VFW Gold, going three innings and allowing 10 runs on nine hits. Nick Olson finished the last two innings,permitting two runs.

New Ulm was guilty of five errors in the game.

Patrow also led the Crimson hitters, going 3-for-4 with a triple. Aaron Moerke, Jeff Jarvis, Ryan Iskiera and Josh Hurley all had two hits. Moerke, Iskiera and Anders Grinde all doubled.

Adam Nilson had the lone VFW Gold RBI.

"J.J. had the ball up and they hit it pretty hard," said VFW Gold coach Bob Weier. "He got behind on the count -- defensively, we made some errors (four, three of which came in the Crimson four-run third inning) on some routine balls. You need to make those plays and we didn't."

Maple Grove got to Germscheid right off the bat, so to speak, when Nick Patrow tripled to center to start the first inning and scored on a wild pitch on a walk to Anders Grinde. Grinde stole second and came home on Aaron Moerke's double to rightfield. A groundout and a Patrick Lenton single made it 3-0.

Another steal of second preceded Jeff Jarvis' base hit and a two-run double by Ryan Iskiera upped the lead to 5-0.

The Crimson made it 9-0 after three innings as Iskiera and Hurley singled with one out and Grinde's double plated them both.

Two consecutive errors scored a run before a third error upped the lead to 9-0.

Meanwhile, Patrow held New Ulm to only one hit through three innings, which was a two-out infield single by Mikale Gustafson in the first.

"Our hitters did not adjust to a lefthanded pitcher," Weier said. "They did not sit back. They did not wait. They did not think centerfield -- rightfield which makes a hitter wait on the lefthanded pitcher. We had a lot of groundballs to the leftside of the infield which tells you that we were out in front of the ball."

Being down right away also took some of Weier's options away.

"(Being down) takes away some of the things that we would like to do like stealing and bunting. But their pitcher did a nice job of keeping us off the bases," Weier said.

New Ulm broke through on Patrow in the fourth on a fielder's choice and singles by Tyler Zollner and Adam Nilson.

Maple Grove ended the game in the bottom of the fifth on two hit batters,a walk ,a error and an RBI single by Jeff Jarvis.

VFW GOLD 000-10--1-4-5

MAPLE GROVE 504-02--11-12-1

WP: Patrow. LP: Germscheid. 2B: Moerke (MG), Iskiera (MG), Grinde (MG). 3B: Patrow (MG).