By John Rittenhouse
The Fourth of July weekend was unkind to the Luverne Redbirds as the amateur baseball team dropped two of three games.
The Redbirds traveled to Hadley Thursday, where they took a two-run holiday loss. Luverne then beat Windom by five runs in Luverne Sunday before falling by two runs to Butterfield later in the day.
Luverne, 10-7 overall, caps the regular season by hosting Brookings, S.D., tonight and Fairmont Sunday.
Butterfield 5,
Luverne 3
The Redbirds fell behind by five runs early in the game and couldn't catch up during Sunday's finale against Butterfield.
Butterfield scored two runs in the second inning and three in the third while opening a 5-0 lead it would never relinquish.
Luverne scored once in the fourth inning and twice in the fifth to trim the difference to three runs, but the rally stalled at that point.
Mike Wenninger made it a 5-1 game when he belted a homer in the fourth.
Mike Boen and James Fisher slapped RBI singles in the fifth to wrap up the scoring in the fifth.
Terry Eernisse yielded five runs in two and one-third innings to take the pitching loss. Travis Eernisse blanked Butterfield over the final four and two-thirds innings.
Box score AB R H BI
Boen 4 1 1 1
Fisher 3 0 1 1
Ohme 3 0 1 0
Wenninger 2 1 1 1
Te.Eernisse 0 0 0 0
Tr.Eernisse 0 0 0 0
Reisch 3 0 0 0
Irish 3 0 1 0
Winkels 3 1 1 0
Schneider 3 0 0 0
Walgrave 2 0 0 0
Weber 1 0 0 0
Luverne 5, Windom 0
A strong pitching performance by Travis Arends carried the Redbirds to their only win of the week against Windom Sunday in Luverne.
Arends tossed a four-hit shutout over seven innings. Arends fanned nine opposing batters.
Luverne scored one run in the top of the first inning and four in the sixth to make Arends a winner.
Derek Ohme singled and scored on a single by Wenninger to give the Redbirds a 1-0 cushion in the first.
Mike Boen delivered a two-run single and Terry Eernisse singled home another run to highlight Luverne's four-run sixth inning.
Box score AB R H BI
Boen 4 0 2 2
Ohme 4 1 2 0
Schneider 3 0 0 0
Wenninger 4 1 3 1
Arends 1 0 1 0
Schmidt 3 0 0 0
Eernisse 4 1 1 1
Fick 4 1 0 0
Weber 3 1 0 0
Reisch 2 0 0 0
Hadley 3, Luverne 1
The Redbirds spent part of their Fourth of July holiday dropping a two-run decision in Hadley Thursday.
The game was tied at one after three and one-half innings of play, but the hosts scored single runs in the fourth and fifth innings to gain the margin of victory.
Hadley opened the scoring with a run in the bottom of the second only to have Luverne tie the game in the top of the third.
Redbird Isaac Schmidt singled and scored on Ohme's single.
Jon Jarchow took the pitching loss.
Box score AB R H BI
Iveland 4 0 1 0
Ohme 4 0 2 1
J.Sehr 4 0 1 0
M.Sehr 3 0 0 0
Te.Eernisse 3 0 1 0
Weber 3 0 0 0
Fick 2 0 0 0
Jarchow 3 0 1 0
Schmidt 2 1 1 0
Arends 1 0 0 0