Elrosa's late rally spills Spring Hill

A topsy-turvy, back-and-forth affair played out on Sunday afternoon (May 1) as the Elrosa Saints and Spring Hill Chargers resumed their storied amateur baseball rivalry at Chargers Field. Their last meeting resulted in the end of Elrosa's season last year at the Region 15C tournament, a state-qualifying game no less.

Through three innings Spring Hill led 4-2. After seven innings were complete, the Chargers expanded that lead to 6-3.

Elrosa got two runs back in the top of the eighth inning while holding Spring Hill scoreless in their next at bat.

A four-run top of the ninth fueled Elrosa's win, and their defense held the hosts to just one run in the final at bat for a final score of 9-7.

Elrosa had 13 hits in the game, while Spring Hill had 12 hits off of Elrosa pitchers Austen Hadley (IP-6, K-6 BB-1) and Aaron Vogt (W, IP-3, K-3 BB-3).

Spring Hill’s Chris Spanier was tagged with the loss while pitching in relief in the final inning. The Saints were held to five hits across the first seven innings by starter Austin Schoenberg and Louie Opatz.

Elrosa's Matt Schmitz had a leadoff home run in the third inning, Ethan Vogt had a leadoff home run in the eighth and Kevin Kuefler followed suit with a leadoff home run in the ninth.

Spring Hill, smarting from a tough 8-1 loss in their season opener last weekend to New Munich, looked poised to get in the win column but falls to 0-2. Elrosa is 2-0 and hosts St. Martin (1-0) next Sunday (May 8) for the home opener. The Martins got their season opener in on Sunday and beat visiting Roscoe 7-4.

Read more in this week's issue of the Bonanza Valley Voice newspaper.

Elrosa - 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 2 4 -- 9

Spring Hill - 0 2 2 0 1 0 1 0 1 -- 7

Other scores around the Stearns County League this past Sunday:

Farming 13, Richmond 12

Lake Henry 7, Greenwald 0

New Munich 5, Meire Grove 3

Catch more SCL baseball updates at Melrose Beacon sports reporter Herman Lensing's baseball blog: http://midmnbaseball.blogspot.com/