Waseca baseball sees season come to an end Saturday after defeating TCU to Thursday night

The Waseca baseball team’s spring officially came to a close this week with a pair of games in the Section 2AA Elimination bracket. Thursday evening, the Bluejays traveled to Montgomery to battle Tri-City United, earning an 8-6 victory to stay alive before making the trip to Le Sueur’s Bruce Frank Field to face Maple River Saturday.

The Eagles put 13 runs on the board with Waseca errors coming to roost, resulting in a 13-3 defeat that brought the season to an end.

Game 1: Waseca — 8, Tri-City United — 6

The Bluejays faced off against the Titans and built a five-run lead in the top of the first inning which aided Sabastian Teague on the mound who earned the win throwing six innings and allowing three runs on four hits. The Waseca offense kicked things off with back-to-back-to-back singles from Keaton Roeker, Nate Engel-Mueller and Carter Ellis before a bases loaded walk was drawn by Shane Engel-Mueller.

Teague then aided his own cause on the mound with a two-run ball in play after the ball took a weird hop at third that bounded past the defender and into the outfield. Jacob Thompson then lifted a sac fly to right field for an RBI before Colton Reudy hit a blooper to shallow center field for another RBI.

TCU scored its first run of the night on a double to left field in the bottom of the fourth, but in the top of the fifth, RBI singles from Teague and Thompson pushed the Waseca lead to 7-1. The Titans scored two runs in the bottom of the fifth and Teague brought home the eighth run of the night in the top of the seventh to give the Jays a five-run lead as TCU faced its final three outs.

While the Titans rallied with three runs, all coming with two outs, a pop fly stayed in the infield where S. Engel-Mueller called off his teammates and hauled in the catch to secure the win.

Waseca recorded 11 hits in the win with Roeker, Ellis and Shane Engel-Mueller posting two each while Nate Engel-Mueller, Teague, Thompson, Ruedy and Titus Mokoff all added a hit each.

Game 2: Maple River — 13, Waseca — 3

Colton Ruedy earned the start for Waseca and pitched two and one third innings allowing eight runs, none of them earned while walking just one batter and allowing four hits. Carter Ellis and Shane Engel-Mueller pitched the remaining one and a third inning, allowing five combined runs, only two of them earned as eight errors in the field made every out come at a premium.

The game got started on the right foot for Waseca with Ellis drawing a one-out walk before Nate Engel-Mueller was hit by a pitch followed by an RBI single to center field from S. Engel-Mueller. Nate then reached home on a wild pitch to give the Jays a 2-0 lead in the top of the first.

The score remained 2-0 in favor of Waseca until the bottom of the third inning saw the defense unravel, resulting in nine total runs, not one of them earned as singles and walks combined with a series of errors. In the top of the fifth, the Jays scored their third and final run of the day with Roeker scoring on a single to center from S. Engel-Mueller.

Four Eagle runs in the bottom of the fifth allowed them to bring the game to a close via run rule.

The loss marks the final game for nine seniors on the team, Carter Ellis, Shane Engel-Mueller, Nate Engel-Mueller, Titus Mokoff, Josh Teachout, Keaton Roeker, Jacob Thompson, Sabastian Teague and Logan Heyer, many of which joined the team this year to fill out the roster after last season also featured a senior heavy class.