Legion Gold routs Post 7

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

JACKSON -- This past spring, New Ulm High School's Ryan Wellmann was hoping to win The Journal Baseball Player of the Year award.

But two players from the Class A State Champions Sleepy Eye High School, Cole Deibele and Jim Eckstein shared that honor.

Saturday afternoon, the righthanded Wellmann made his point by striking out nine, including Eckstein three times, as New Ulm Gold rolled by Sleepy Eye 11-2 in a winner's bracket game of the Second District American Legion Tournament.

Wellmann allowed just five hits as New Ulm improved to 15-12 on the season.

Deibele, the other winner of the award, was tagged with the pitching loss. He allowed all 11 runs and struck out one. But the Post 7 defense behind him was guilty of five errors, including three in one inning when Gold pushed across four runs.

Joey Schugel led New Ulm with three hits and two RBI. Mitch Stueber had two hits and drove in three runs.

"We knew that this was a big game coming in facing both (Cole) Deibele and (Jim) Eckstein," said Wellmann. "We knew what we were against so we had to come out on top."

And Gold did just that. After Wellmann set down Sleepy Eye, now 8-10, in order in the first New Ulm went to work against Deibele.

Scott O'Brien walked and a John Enter sacrifice bunt moved him to second. O'Brien took third on a steal before Ryan Walters drew the second free pass from Deibele of the inning. Walters swiped second and both O'Brien and Walters scored on Mitch Stueber's single to right field for a 2-0 lead and Gold never looked back.

New Ulm would use three Post 7 miscues in the second inning to score four runs.

Micade Thordson's ground ball was booted at third by Jim Eckstein. Travis Thorson's bunt was fielded by catcher Mike Nachreiner whose throw to second to get Thordson was in time but shortstop Ross Lendt could not handle the throw and Gold had runners on first and second with no outs.

The third straight error of the inning, by first baseman Adam Armbruster, allowed Jamie Hoffmann to reach first and Thordson to score for a 3-0 lead with Thorson taking third on the error.

Thorson scored on an O'Brien infield single to up the lead to 4-0 before Deibele hit John Enter, the first of three hit batters by Deibele in the game, to load the bases.

Schugel followed with the first of his three hits in the game to score O'Brien and Enter as New Ulm went up 6-0.

"I think that we started playing well and hitting since that Detroit Lakes Tournament (last weekend)," said Schugel. "We saw the ball well and hit the curveball and fastball. Right now, we are real confident. We have played good ball for the last 10 games or so. Plus, we were playing Sleepy Eye."

The errors were very uncharacteristic of Post 7 according to head coach John Hirschboeck. "We have played good defense all year but we didn't today," he said. "New Ulm took advantage of it, but it is a double-elimination tournament and we will be here tomorrow."

Post 7 would score their only runs of the game, two unearned runs, in the third inning. Steve Geschwind singled with one out and an error by shortstop Schugel put runners on first and second with one out. Andy Konz' single scored Geschwind and Chad Armbruster's double scored Nachreiner, who reached on the error. But a perfect relay throw from New Ulm left fielder Walters to third baseman Thorson to Stueber nailed Konz at the plate for the third out.

Gold put a two-out score on the board in the fourth again due in large part to an error. Stueber reached on an error by Lendt at shortstop and Schugel's third hit of the game moved him to third. A Deibele wild pitch plated Stueber.

New Ulm added four runs in the sixth when Enter was hit by a pitch and stole second. He raced to third on a Walters' fly out to center and came home on Stueber's base hit.

Another error and an Isaac Larson single made it 9-2.

RBI singles by Andy Stolt and Hoffmann closed out the scoring.

Wellmann also felt that the Detroit Lakes Tournament was a turning point last week.

"We lost to Bloomington Gold and we just seem to have bonded a little more as a team since then. Since then, the ball seems as big as a beach ball when we are hitting."

SLEEPY EYE 002 000 0 -- 2 5 5

LEGION GOLD 240 104 X -- 11 9 0

WP--Wellmann, LP--Deibele. 2B--C. Armbruster (SE).