Owatonna VFW loses in makeup game against Austin

The Owatonna VFW Post 1216 VFW baseball team dominated Byron Monday in what was Owatonna’s last scheduled regular season game. But a makeup game Thursday against Austin was Owatonna’s last of the regular season before heading over to Rochester Saturday for the start of the playoffs.

The Owatonna VFW 9 and 10 teams were supposed to play one game each on Saturday, June 22 in a doubleheader against Austin, but rain caused the games to be postponed. Owatonna played against Austin Thursday to make up one of the games, using a mixed VFW club comprised of players from both grades.

Austin won the makeup game 13-2.

Owatonna scored first in the game, as Bentley Arvig had a lead-off double to start the bottom of the first and scored in the next at-bat as Aedan Tackman singled to center to give Owatonna an early 1-0 lead.

Owatonna had an opportunity to make their lead even bigger after a walk by Ben Sackett, but a weird play in A.J Ulrich’s at-bat ended up being a double play. Tackman hit a flyout to shallow right field, but no one caught it, leading to Austin’s right fielder throwing to third and then the third baseman threw to second for a 9-5-6 double play. A groundout ended the inning for Owatonna.

Tackman was the starting pitcher for Owatonna, going through the first two innings without giving up a run. A couple of errors by Owatonna’s defense allowed Austin to score a run to tie up the game in the third inning and have runners on first and third with two outs. Austin then took a 3-1 lead after a single scored two runs.

Owatonna had a chance to come back to potentially tie up the game with Emilio Garza and Bentley Arvig hitting singles to have runners on first and second base with no outs in the bottom of the third, but three straight fly balls ended the inning.

Austin scored another two runs in the fourth and a run in the fifth to take a 6-1 lead going into the bottom of the fifth.

Owatonna had runners on first and second with one out in the fifth after walks by A.J. Avalos and Emilio Garza, but Owatonna came out of the inning scoring no runs.

Austin broke away in the sixth inning, scoring seven runs and scoring three of them before they recorded an out.

Leading 13-1, Owatonna had to score three runs to have the game continue to the seventh inning due to the mercy rule.

Braydan Mahlman doubled and later scored on an error, but that wasn’t enough to extend the game as that was the only run Owatonna scored in the inning, their first since the first inning.

Owatonna lost to Austin 13-2, and will start their playoffs on Saturday in Rochester as they will play two games. The first game will be against the Rochester Knights at 12:30 p.m at Rochester Mayo High School. They will then face either Byron or Rochester Mayo later that afternoon.