Kaiserhoff knots series

K tops Marshall 10-7;

deciding game Sunday

in Marshall

BY JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM -- One of the concerns that Kaiserhoff manager Brady Ranweiler had with his young New Ulm team during the regular season was late-inning collapses when the Kaiserhoff held leads against strong teams.

Friday night, New Ulm bent but did not collapse as they tied the Section 4B playoff series at 1-1 with a 10-7 win over Marshall.

The third and deciding game will be played Sunday night in Marshall at 7:30 p.m., with one team's season coming to an end.

Aaron Heitzman picked up the win for New Ulm (17-9) going eight innings. He allowed seven runs while recording nine strikeouts.

Tom Steinbach pitched the ninth inning to pick up the save.

Bryan Franis took the loss for Marshall in relief of starter Jon Kuelz.

Steinbach also led the Kaiserhoff offense, going 4-for-4 and driving in three runs. Landon Rathmann drove in three runs and Ranweiler two.

Brendon Rokke led Marshall with three hits.

"We did not play good defense tonight,"said Ranweiler who saw his team guilty of five errors in the game."We got down 2-1 (to Jon Kuelz who had beaten New Ulm 7-4 earlier in the regular season) and that is nice. Our bats had kind of struggled through most of the year. We scored 10 runs last game (in a 12-10 loss) and we scored 10 runs again tonight. And I imagine that if we score another 10 runs again on Sunday with Cory (Ranweiler) pitching, we will have a good chance of winning."

The Kaiserhoff fell behind Kuelz and the A's 2-0 after three innings with one run due to one of the five New Ulm errors in the game.

Dave Tapper led off with a double and went to third on a passed ball. Tyson Kassel then slapped a groundball to thirdbaseman Cory Ranweiler. Tapper tried to score and was dead at the plate, but catcher Brady Ranweiler could not hold the throw.

In the third it was a walk, two groundouts and a seeing-eye single to center by Joe Westpahl that eluded the gloves of Heitzmann and shortstop Travis Fleck.

The Kaiserhoff sliced the lead in half in the fourth inning when Steinbach singled in Brady Ranweiler who had walked to start the inning.

The green and gold followed that with a five-run outburst in the fifth inning, sending nine men to the plate.

Fleck reached on a walk. An error by Kuelz on an Aaron Dolan bunt put runners on first and third with no outs. Cory Ranweiler's ground ball forced Dolan at second as Fleck stayed at third.

Walks to Ryan Ellwein and Brady Ranweiler tied the game at 2-2. Landon Rathmann followed by hammering a 2-2 Kuelz pitch for a three-run double and a 5-2 lead. Rathmann scored when Tom Steinbach sliced a double to right for a 6-2 lead.

It became 10-3 in the sixth as New Ulm used an error for one run. Brady Ranweiler was hit by a 1-2 pitch for force in another run. An RBI single by Steinbach and a wild pitch produced the seven run cushion.

But Marshall rallied with two runs in both the seventh and eighth innings before Steinbach took over in the ninth and shut down Marshall.

"Aaron did a great job for us," commented Ranweiler. "But I was expecting that from him; this was a big game. Aaron has that experience in the big game and he came through for us big-time."

MARSHALL 011-001-220= 7-10-2

NU KAISERHOFF 000-154-00X=10- 8-5