Jr. Legion

goes 4-0

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- The cliche in baseball is that a walk is as good as a hit.

The New Ulm Junior Legion proved that Saturday night as they used four first-inning walks coupled with a St. Cloud error to score three runs and come away with a 3-0 win.

Left-hander Tony Mielke pitched 6 1-3 innings of two-hit ball to pick up the win -- his second in three days.

And Post 132 southpaw Nick Breu recorded his second save in as many days.

Jeremy Lechner took the loss for St. Cloud, going 1 2-3 innings and giving up three hits. He allowed only one hit, but issued five walks with four of them figuring directly in Post 132's scoring.

Josh Thorson tripled for New Ulm while Peter Dusek had a double for St. Cloud.

"We got a great pitching performance from Tony Mielke," said New Ulm coach LeRoy Flor. "The kids played well behind him -- no errors and that is what it is all about."

New Ulm used the free pass to score the only runs of the game in that second inning.

Adam Macho drew a one-out walk and Mielke reached on an error. After a Josh Sabatino popout, Landon Rewitzer singled in Macho for a 1-0 lead.

Lechner then proceeded to walk Bryan Kamm, Josh Thorson and Adam Neubauer in succession to push across two more runs and a 3-0 lead.

That ended Lechner's night as Mike Kostreba and Derrick Albers took over the mound duties with no further damage.

"You take what the other team gives you," commented Flor. "He was a little wild and we took some pitches. We got some runners on base."

Meanwhile, Mielke kept St. Cloud runners off base as they left only one runner on base in the game.

Mielke was also aided by a defense that turned two double plays.

But one thing that concerned Flor was New Ulm's inability to get runners home. The Junior Legion stranded 14 runners in the game after leaving 11 runners on base in their 3-1 win over Rochester Friday night.

"That does concern me a lot," said Flor. "We did not get a key hit when we needed it and we also missed a suicide squeeze bunt and that is not like us. And only three hits in the game also concerns me."

NEW ULM JR LEGION 030 000 0--3 3 0

ST. CLOUD 000 000 0--0 2 4

WP: Mielke.LP: Lechner.2B: Dusek (SC). 3B: Thorson (NU).