VFW BASEBALL: Worthington advances with win over Marshall Orange

WORTHINGTON — Worthington took an early lead against Marshall Orange and sealed victory with a four-run fifth inning to win the consolation bracket in the Third District Southern Division Sub-District Tournament in Worthington on Sunday.

The victory gave Post 3958 the No. 2 seed from the south in next weekend’s district tournament in Pipestone.

Worthington scored twice in the first inning, which was enough to give Blake Rogers (six innings pitched, five hits, four walks, two runs, seven strikeouts) a comfortable lead to pitch with.

“You get a couple runs in the first inning, you go out and you get to pitch with the lead,” Rogers said. “You feel better on the mound if you know that if you do give up a couple runs you’re still going to have the lead. It’s always good to pitch with a lead.”

Worthington scored the first run of the game when Aaron Pavelko (2-for-4, three runs) dashed home on a dropped third strike with Rogers at the plate. Rylan Scholtes (1-for-3, two RBI) then drove in A.J. Hayenga (2-for-4, two runs, RBI, two stolen bases) with a single.

“I’m pretty pleased with the way we ran the bases, how aggressive we ran and how we took advantage of situations,” Worthington head coach T.D. Hostikka said. “We really did manufacture runs because we were heads up on the bases. When you’re doing that, things can happen. Whether it’s a bloop single or it’s a gap shot, you can score some runs.”

Marshall made the score 2-1 by scoring in the top of the fourth, but Ryan Lee drove in Tyler Hatterman (2-for-3, two RBI, two runs) in the bottom of the inning to get the lead back to two.

Hatterman had a crucial two-run triple in the fifth to give Worthington some breathing room.

“I got a 2-0 count on me, so I was looking fastball and I got a good piece of it,” Hatterman said. “I was pretty relaxed. I was confident I could hit the ball out somewhere each time I was up to bat.”

Scholtes preceded Hatterman’s hit with a sacrifice fly and Deron Soderholm followed with an RBI-single.

“That inning was huge,” Rogers said. “Tyler came up and hit the ball good with that one gap shot. That really put our tempo back up because we were kind of down. That really gave us the edge I think to finish out the game strong.”

A.J. Hayenga added an RBI-single in the sixth and Scholtes then pitched a solid seventh inning to seal the win.

Worthington will match up against BOLD at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday in Pipestone in the opening round of the district tournament.

“Now everybody is 0-0 going into the final four,” Hostikka said. “Everybody wants to take that spot in the state tournament. We have to do what we need to do against them. Even though we’ve played them already and beat them, we have to go out there ready to play.”

Worthington will practice twice this week to prepare for BOLD and a possible rematch with Luverne.

“We’ve just got to work hard during practice and make sure to stay focused and know what we’ve got to do on Saturday to get it done,” Hatterman said.

R H E

Marsh. 000 101 0 — 2 5 3

Worth. 200 141 X — 8 9 2

Tags: vfw baseball, sports, baseball, worthington