Lakers can't hold on to lead in loss to New Prague

The Faribault Lakers had their first home game since June 19th on Sunday against the New Prague Orioles.

It was a beautiful night on Sunday and the Lakers would immediately entertain the crowd with scoring six runs in the second inning. Down 7-0 after three innings, the Orioles would chase starting pitcher Egan Bonde with seven runs of their own in the fourth inning and four more in the fifth, resulting in a 12-9 win against the Lakers.

The Lakers got on the board first in the bottom of the second inning after Porter Sartor hit a solo home run to left field. The Lakers would then load the bases on a error, a hit by pitch and a walk by Nate Rost. Joe Grote would promptly double to right field to make it 4-0.

The Lakers would score another run the ugly way to make it 5-0 as New Prague would commit another fielding error scoring Drew Conrad, who had walked earlier. Tucker Alstead would then double, scoring Grote and Rost to cap off the six-run inning.

The Lakers would score the seventh run on a double by Stefan Anderson in the bottom of third. Xander Fitszimmons would drive him home on a single.

New Prague would come back strong in the fourth, scoring seven runs on eight hits. Gavin Bergman highlighted the inning with a solo home run and Eric Wagner had a three-run double to tie the game up.

The Orioles took their first lead in the top of the fifth on back-to-back doubles spelling the end of the day for Bonde, as they would string together four hits in a row to take the lead 11-7. Bonde pitched four innings and gave up nine runs.

Joe Grote would come on in relief for the Lakers in the fifth. There was no more scoring until the bottom of the eighth as Drew Conrad and Grote of the Lakers reached to begin the inning and both eventually scored on sacrifice flies to make it 11-9.

New Prague added a run in the ninth and the Lakers did not have an answer as they lost recorded their eighth loss of the season with a final score of 12-9. The Lakers collected ten hits on the night and New Prague had sixteen in the high scoring affair.

At 6-8-1 they will need to string some wins together to get themselves a nice seed in the Dakota Rice Scott playoffs. They will be back at Bell Field on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. against the Webster Sox.