Last gasp Wolverine rally falls just short in loss to HMS
Held scoreless through six innings by Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn, South O’Brien attempted a rally from two-runs down. The Wolverines pushed one run across, but were unable to finish the job, falling 2-1 to HMS June 1 at Hartley.
Tyson Wulf led off the seventh with a fly to center. When the ball was lost in the lights, Wulf was standing on second with a double. A sacrifice bunt by Pete Bottjen moved Wulf to third. He scored on Micah Davis’ ground ball to first, but there were now two outs and nobody on. Jett Keith remedied the latter with a single to right, putting the tying run on base. Dain Moermond put the next pitch in play, but it was fielded at third and the throw to the shortstop forced Keith at second for the final out.
South O’Brien had a chance to get on the board first in the second inning. Moermond led off with a single. With one out, Kadyn Steffens drew a walk. Wilson Millan’s ground ball forced Moermond at third. A walk to Kaedon Louscher loaded the bases, but Wulf hit a comebacker to the mound to end the threat.
In the third inning, with the game still scoreless, Davis hit a one-out single and Keith was hit by a pitch. Hawk pitch Samuel Heyn then fanned a pair of batters for two of his 12 strikeouts in the game. HMS then scored its two runs in the bottom of the inning.
Additions to the aforementioned Wolverine hits were singles by Davis in the second and by Brock Riedemann in the sixth. The Wolverines left nine men on base while HMS stranded eight.
Keith got the pitching start and went 3-1/3 innings. He allowed the two runs, one of which was earned, and five hits. Keith fanned three batters and walked one. Bottjen came on in relief and threw the final 2-2/3 innings. He also recorded three strikeouts and a walk. Bottjen yielded no hits. South O’Brien was guilty of four errors.
S. O’Brien
0 0 0 0 0 0 1 – 1
HMS
0 0 2 0 0 0 x – 2