Mankato beats Gold in slugfest

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- Coming into their second meeting with Mankato, New Ulm Legion Gold knew that Post 11 had a good hitting team. Earlier in the year, Gold had beaten Mankato in a 16-14 slugfest.

But Tuesday night, Mankato got a little revenge as Adam Sorenson and Taylor Blomquist both blasted home runs in a 14-11 Mankato win at Mueller Park.

Brad Walsh got the win for Post 11 (3-6) going 3 2/3 innings with Sorenson finishing up.

Tony Mielke took the loss for New Ulm Gold (7-4) giving up four runs in the first inning.

Chase Brown, Sorenson and Eric Starke each had three hits. Blomquist and Marcus Duenes each drove in three runs.

Joey Geistfeld, Josh Sabatino and Josh Thorson had two hits each for Gold.

"We knew that Mankato was a good hitting team," New Ulm coach Dave Kunz said, who will take his team to Marshall tonight for a wooden bat game. "We knew that they could hit but we did not make very good pitches tonight -- we did not make good decisions on the mound and it cost us."

Mankato would jump on Gold starter Tony Mielke for four runs in the first inning when Chase Brown singled and scored on Blomquist's home run over the fence in left field. Brad Walsh followed with a walk. Sorenson singled and both scored on a base hit by Duenes.

That ended Mielke's night. "He (Mielke) was a little sore before the game but did not want to say anything," Kunz said. "We held him back this past weekend because of that."

New Ulm would cut the lead in half with two runs in the second. Adam Neubauer reached on an error and Brad Kraus walked. Both would eventually score on RBI singles by Josh Thorson and Landon Rewitzer but would lose the first of two runners because of base-running mistakes.

"We like to be aggressive on the bases but we were to aggressive and did not pay attention to the runner ahead of us," Kunz said. "Instead of two run innings, we score four."

Mankato racked up two more runs off of reliever Adam NIlson in the third on a two-run homer over the fence in left by Sorenson.

Gold cut the lead to 6-5 in the fourth on an RBI single by Thorson,an error and a wild pitch.It was also an inning where Gold lost a runner at third on a baserunning mistake.

Post 11 would tally five more runs in the fifth on an RBI double by Duenes, a two-run double from Brown, a groundout and a base hit by Brad Walsh.

Gold struck for two runs in the bottom of the inning on a run-scoring double by Josh Sabatino and an error.

But Mankato would tally the eventual winning runs in the top of the seventh on two New Ulm outfield errors and an RBI single.

New Ulm made it close in the bottom of the inning with four runs on base hits by Scott Knisley, Thorson, an error and a sacrifice fly before Sorenson got the final out with two New Ulm runners on base.

MANKATO 402 050 3 --14 15 4

NEW ULM GOLD 020 320 4 --11 10 2