VFW BASEBALL: Post 3958 earns key victory against Marshall Orange

MARSHALL — Blake Rogers hadn’t pitched at all during the VFW baseball season until Thursday night.

He didn’t show any rust.

The Worthington starter pitched two perfect innings to set the tone in his team’s contest against Marshall Orange, paving the way for a 12-2, five-inning victory for Post 3958.

Rogers didn’t allow a hit or a run over his two innings, fanning four batters. He was relieved by Deron Soderholm (one-third of an inning pitched, one hit, two runs, two walks) and Aaron Pavelko (two-and-two-thirds innings pitched, two hits, no runs, one strikeout).

Worthington used its speed to swipe nine bases during the contest, led by a three-steal day by Alex Hayenga (2-for-3, RBI, two runs).

“I would say that that’s probably one of our best overall games that we’ve played this year,” Worthington head coach T.D. Hostikka said. “No errors, 14 hits and we ran the bases very aggressively.”

Soderholm had a big day at the plate for Post 3958 by going 3-for-4 with two runs batted in and two runs scored, Rylan Scholtes was 2-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI and Todd Peterson was 2-for-3 with a run scored, two RBI and a stolen base.

The win was crucial to keep Worthington’s hopes of taking the conference title alive, especially since Marshall Orange was one of the main contenders for the title.

“They’re a good team,” Hostikka said. “Marshall Orange is very much improved. They were 5-2 going into the game, so they’ll probably end up being the No. 3 seed out of our district.”

Post 3958 (14-11, 7-1) will play two home games on Thursday. The team opens with a contest against Slayton at 6 p.m. and follows with a game against Luverne.

The game against Luverne will likely decide the conference title.

“Our only loss in conference is to Luverne, they beat us last Monday night 6-5 in eight innings,” Hostikka said. “If we can get a win by more than two runs, we’ll win the conference. That’s exactly what happened last year, we split but we beat them 4-1 and they only beat us by one. That’s a real big game that second one. We obviously have to win the first game first and go from there.”

R H E

Worth. 223 50 — 12 14 0

Marsh. 002 00 — 2 3 3

Tags: vfw baseball, sports, baseball, worthington