AMATEUR BASEBALL: Cubs beat Lakers in thriller

WORTHINGTON — It was a wild night at the Worthington Middle School fields, as the Worthington Cubs defeated the Mountain Lake Lakers 9-8, in a very back-and-forth game.

Mitch Jensen pitched six solid innings, only giving up five runs. It wasn’t a spectacular performance, but it kept the Cubs in the game.

“We had a good start on the mound from Mitch Jensen,” Cubs manager Josh Wasmund said. “Even though the defense didn’t always help him out, and make all the plays, we stepped up and made the plays we needed to make.”

Laker pitcher Dusty Pfeiffer, pitched all eight innings for his respective club, while giving up nine runs, five of which were unearned.

The Cubs opened up the scoring in the bottom of the second inning when Kinley (3-for-4, two RBIs) drove in Nate Harberts with a single that slipped past Mountain Lake center fielder Kaleb Grev, rolling all the way to the left-field fence. Kinley made it all the way home, as later in the second, Adam Munkel (2-for-4, two RBIs) added two more runs for the Cubs by driving in both Kinley and Toby Kerkaert, who had reached on an error.

“Both Munkel and Joey Kinley had big days hitting for us at the plate,” Wasmund said.

Kinley pitched the seventh inning for the Cubs, giving up two runs, only one of which was earned.

“We got to see some really strong action from Joey Kinley,” Wasmund said. “This was his first time pitching all year. He came in, and he was really effective.”

The Lakers responded by scoring two runs with a towering triple to deep left-center by Adam Schroeder (2-for-4) to drive in Beau Herrig (2-for-4). Schroeder then scored on a Steven Herrig single to left field, that just barely scraped by Cub shortstop Munkel, who had so far gotten every ball that came anywhere near him.

The Cubs answered with Jensen helping himself out by taking a 3-1 pitch deep to left-center, scoring both Munkel and Kinley, and then scoring himself on a bad pickoff attempt by Laker catcher Eric Johnson, making the score 5-2 in favor of the Cubs.

The Lakers tightened the score once again in the top of the sixth with an RBI single by Eric Johnson to drive in Beau Herrig to make the score 7-6, with the Cubs still holding on to the lead. The Cubs added two more runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to cling on to the lead, as the Lakers also scored two in the top of the seventh.

Cubs pitcher Jarrad Meinders closed the door after that, however, as he pitched two scoreless innings, coming away with his and the team’s first save of the season.

The Cubs committed four fielding errors on the night, as well as a baserunning error, but Wasmund wasn’t complaining.

“You can never complain when you get a win,” Wasmund said.

The Cubs are in action again this Saturday in Jackson against the Bulls.

R H E

ML 000 203 201 — 8 12 6

Cubs 030 202 20X — 9 6 4

Tags: amateur baseball, mountain lake, sports, baseball, worthington