With the regular season beginning to wind down, the St. Peter Over 35 baseball team hosted the Belle Plaine Gray Tigers Tuesday night aiming to push their win streak to three games. Steve Winkler, Bob Elsen and Ryan Gebur combined on the mound to throw a shutout two-hit game, leading the Saints to a 7-0 victory.
With the win, St. Peter improves to 8-3 on the season with two games remaining on the regular season schedule.
Things started shaky for the Saints in the top of the first inning with a pair of walks and a batter that was hit by a pitch loading the bases with two outs for the Gray Tigers, but Winkler got the third and final out on a strikeout swinging to get out of the jam. In the bottom of the first, Mike Nachreiner reached on an error at shortstop before stealing second during the next at-bat.
Gebur advanced Nachreiner to third with a single to left field before Luke Larson sent an RBI double into right field. Jeff Baron followed that up with a sac fly to left that allowed Gebur to score and Rich Mittman ripped an RBI single into right field that allowed Larson to cross home plate, putting the Saints up 3-0.
In the bottom of the third inning, St. Peter assembled a two-out rally started by Anders Schmidt’s single to right field followed by a Gebur single up the middle. An error at second allowed one run to score and Baron’s grounder to third on the next at-bat was mishandled, putting the Saints up 5-0.
The bottom of the fourth inning saw St. Peter open things with three straight singles, but the third hit to shallow left field caused enough of a delay on the base path that Belle Plaine was able to get a force out at third after just barely missing on the diving grab. In the next at-bat, Winkler began to limp during his run to first which resulted in him being unable to pitch with a leg injury, allowing Elsen to take the mound in relief after four innings of no-hit baseball.
Elsen got three straight groundouts in his first inning of work and in the bottom of the fifth, an RBI triple from Schmidt and a sac fly RBI from Gebur gave St. Peter a 7-0 lead. The Gray Tigers got their first hit of the night in the top of the sixth with a double sent into the right centerfield gap, but no damage was done when Elsen picked off the runner at second before forcing a groundout to third.
In the top of the seventh, Gebur took the mound for the Saints and allowed a leadoff single to right field before striking out two of the next three batters and forcing a groundout to third, where Elsen barehanded a bouncing ball before making the throw to first for the final out, securing the 7-0 victory.
The Saints will fortunately have a bit of a break before returning to action as their next scheduled game is set for Sunday, July 28 against the Mankato Twins.
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