After a rainstorm ended the Aces’ hopes to play a home game on Wednesday night, Chuck Fuller Field was ready to go by Thursday night for the matchup between the Owatonna American Legion Post 77 baseball team against Waseca.
The matchup was an all-around great game, as Waseca came back every time it fell behind until Owatonna shut down its opponent in the seventh inning to win the contest at a score of 6-5.
Both teams put a man on base in the first inning, with Waseca’s Keato Roeker drawing a walk and Owatonna’s Gavin Saxton hitting a leadoff single. Both teams were unable to score though as the game was tied at zero heading into the second inning.
Tayte Berg was the starting pitcher for Post 77, as he went four innings and had seven strikeouts on the day. He pitched a 1-2-3 inning with two strikeouts in the top of the second to give Owatonna a chance to break the game open in the bottom half of the inning.
They did just that as Blake Davison singled to left to start the inning. Davison used his speed skills after being caught in a rundown on a ground ball in the infield to be safe at second base.
Tyler Sheehan stepped up to the plate in the inning with one out and the bases loaded in the bottom of the second. A wild pitch scored Davison and a sacrifice bunt by Sheehan scored Tanner Smith, who got on base on the grounder to the infield. Sheehan, who was on first, then stole second base and that allowed Hunter Theiss to score from third after Waseca’s catcher threw to second to try and tag Sheehan.
Owatonna took a 3-0 lead and did not trail at all in the game, but Waseca always kept themselves in the game. They scored three runs of their own in the top of the third after going on a two-out rally.
Owatonna got in trouble in the top of the fourth as it looked like Waseca was going to take the lead after a two-out double and a hit-by-pitch, but Berg was able to get out of it with an infield groundout down the first base line.
Errors by Waseca and smart base running by Owatonna lead Post 77 to take a 5-3 lead in the fourth. It wasn’t until the top of the sixth when Waseca came back and tied up the game.
Owatonna put the nail in the coffin in the sixth though as Andy Mitchel hit a single to center field with two outs and.a wild pitch and an error by Waseca allowed him to score to have Owatonna take a 6-5 lead. Mitch Seykora then closed the game out with a 1-2-3 pitching performance in the seventh.
Connor Wiese came into pitch in the fifth inning for Owatonna and pitched the fifth inning as well as two thirds of the sixth inning before Seykora came into pitch the last four outs of the game.
After the win against Waseca, Owatonna plays at home again on Sunday against Byron. The game will start at 6:00 p.m. at Chuck Fuller Field.
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