It took 13 innings and over three hours to determine a winner when the Windom Eagles baseball team came to Redbird Field on Tuesday, April 12, to take on the Luverne Cardinals.
The two longtime conference foes were tied 2-2 after the seven scheduled innings were complete and would play almost a second seven-inning contest before Windom scored five runs in the top of the 13th inning to take the lead.
When Luverne was unable to score in the bottom of the 13th frame, Windom earned the 7-2 victory in its first game of the season.
The Cardinals fell to 0-2 on the young season.
Windom scored first in the game after the Eagles’ Josh Garrison walked, stole second base and then scored when Wyatt Haugen bunted and reached base on a Luverne error in the top of the second inning.
Luverne tied the game in the bottom of the third stanza when Jacob Stroh scored his team’s first run of the season.
Stroh reached second base on a fielder’s choice and then stole third base. He scored when Braydon Ripka grounded to second base.
Each team scored a single run in the fourth inning to reach the 2-2 score that would last for nine innings.
Conner Connell scored for the Cardinals when Kaden Anderson hit a line drive RBI single.
Each team had only four batters go to the plate during each of the eighth, ninth and tenth innings and no runs were scored.
In the top of the 12th inning, Windom loaded the bases, but the Eagles were unable to score a run when the third out was made at home plate to end the inning.
Luverne’s Zach DeBoer hit a double in the bottom of the 12th inning, but the Cardinals were unable to advance DeBoer, and the inning ended with the game still tied at two.
The Eagles finally opened up the game in the top of the 13th stanza.
After the first Windom batter grounded out, the next six batters reached base. After five of those Eagles scored runs, Luverne made a double play to end the half inning with a 7-2 Windom lead.
In the bottom of the inning, Casey Sehr hit a fly out to center field, Connell struck out and Connor Overgaard hit a single before Anderson struck out to earn the third out and end the inning and game.
Anderson was the starting pitcher for Luverne. He spent five innings on the mound and gave up no hits, two runs, three walks and struck out eight Windom hitters.
Sehr replaced Anderson on the mound at the start of the sixth inning. Sehr pitched six innings offering three hits, no runs, two walks and he struck out two batters.
When Sehr reached the pitch count limit, sophomore Stroh replaced him at the start of the 12th inning. Stroh pitched the final two innings, giving up five hits and five runs while striking out two Eagles.
“I’ve been really happy with our pitchers during the first two games. They threw strikes and put us in a position to win both games,” said Phil Paquette, LHS head coach.
Anderson and DeBoer led the offense for LHS with two hits each. Connell and Stroh scored on a run each, while Ripka and Anderson each had one RBI.
“We were solid defensively with a few areas for improvement,” Paquette said.
Luverne was scheduled to host a doubleheader with Redwood Valley on Tuesday, April 19, after this edition of the Star Herald went to press.
The Cardinals are scheduled to play in Pipestone today (April 21), and then travel to Blue Earth for a doubleheader on Saturday, to Windom for a single contest on Monday and to Adrian for a single game on Tuesday during a very busy stretch.
“We need to have more productive at bats and find ways to produce runs in order to win baseball games,” coach Paquette said.
“We’ll have plenty of opportunity to do that this week with five games on the schedule.”
Windom 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 7
Luverne 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
AB R H BI
Ripka 3 0 1 1
Sneller 6 0 0 0
Sehr 6 0 1 0
Connell 5 1 0 0
Overgaard 5 0 1 0
Anderson 6 0 2 1
Serie 4 0 1 0
DeBoer 5 0 2 0
Stroh 4 1 0 0
Buss 1 0 0 0
Domagala 1 0 0 0