Staff photo by Ari Selvey Sleepy Eye St. Mary's Brandon Schmitz safely home in a big nonconference baseball win over Martin County West on Tuesday at Sleepy Eye Baseball Park. I slipped into. The Knights won 20-2 in the fifth inning.
Sleepy Eye — Sleepy Eye Sleepy Eye St. Mary's scored eight runs in two different innings against Martin County West on Tuesday at Sleepy Eye Baseball Park. They won 20-2 in the fifth inning.
Due to the 10-point lead rule, the game was called after the fifth inning.
The team showed a balanced effort at the plate, with all 10 Knights batters scoring runs.
Brandon Schmitz got the win on the mound, striking out six of 10 batters in three innings while allowing one hit. At the plate, Mark Anderson was 3-for-3 with 3 hits, 3 RBIs and 3 RBIs, and Merrick Mathiowetz was 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs and 3 RBIs. John Peterman was 2-for-4 with three hits and two RBIs, and Kam Cossack was two-for-three with three RBIs.
With the win, St. Mary's improved to 10-3 on the season.
“Any night Brandon or Mark is on the mound, we have a chance to win.” St. Mary's head coach Bruce Wojtas said. “Today was the opposite of yesterday, Martin County West gave us a lot of free bases like they did against Springfield.” [Monday] night [in a loss]. When you get it, good things happen. It was good that the other players worked hard on the mound today as well. Overall, we've been playing well all year and we're looking forward to continuing that and seeing what happens come playoff time. ”
St. Mary's quickly led by eight runs, with Peterman and Schmitz stealing bases, scoring runs, singles and RBIs in the same inning. The scoring slowed in the next two innings, with Anderson and Mattiowetz reaching home in the second, and Schmitz and Taran Helget in the third.
The Mavericks performed well, scoring two runs on two hits in the fourth inning, but St. Mary's scored eight more runs in the fourth inning to close out the game. The inning was highlighted by Peterman's two-run single. Kessler Severson closed out the game on the mound in the fifth inning with a lineout to second base and a groundout to shortstop for the win.
St. Mary's is currently preparing for its final game before the playoffs begin. The Knights play at Wabasso on Thursday and play their final four games of the regular season next week.
“You have to pitch well, and free bases are not allowed.” Wojtas said. “We need to put the ball in play and make some clutch hits. When those things happen, good things happen. We have a really tough stretch of games at Wabasso on Thursday and four games on our schedule next week, It's going to be a tough game for us, but it's going to be a good schedule for the playoffs.”
