The good news for the NRHEG High School baseball team is that the Panthers snapped a losing skid last week.
The bad news is it was sandwiched by a pair of lop-sided losses.
The Panthers, who finished the regular season Tuesday and open section tournament play Friday, saw their record slide to 6-11 overall and 5-7 in the Gopher Conference.
Medford 11, NRHEG 4
The Panthers kept it close for five innings against the highly regarded Tigers at Legion Field Monday, May 11 but saw the visitors blow it open in the late innings.
Medford managed three runs in the top of the first inning in drizzly conditions. The Panthers plated a run of their own in the bottom of the first.
NRHEG scored three times in the fourth, cutting Medford’s lead to 6-4.Both starting pitchers struggled to throw strikes at times with the wet baseballs, combining for 15 walks.
John Hubly was 2-for-3 with one run and one RBI. Matt Jensen, Cole Staloch, Grant Kyllo and Trai Wicks had the other NRHEG hits.
Jensen took the pitching loss, giving up five earned runs on four hits, with nine walks and five strikeouts.
NRHEG 5, Blooming Prairie 2
The Panthers bested the Blossoms at Legion Field Friday, May 15.
NRHEG took the lead in the first, plating Trevor Tracy. Blooming regained the lead in the top of the fourth on RBI singles by Romeo and Staska.
Tracy did a nice job of minimizing the damage to get out of the inning allowing only two runs. NRHEG took the lead for good in the bottom of the fourth. Wicks walked to start the inning followed by a double by Palmer Peterson. Dakota Thiele came up and hit a two-run single. Thiele later came around to score on a ground ball by Hubly. Tracy scored the final run of the inning on an RBI single by Jensen.
Dempsey Tucker struck out the side in the seventh to secure the win for the Panthers.
Tracy got the win, giving up two earned runs on five hits. He walked two and struck out three.
At the plate Tracy was 2-for-3 with two runs.
Albert Lea 13, NRHEG 0
The Panthers not only scored no runs Saturday morning at Legion Field, they got no hits off the Tigers’ Chris Erlandson, who struck out nine and walked four through seven innings.
Tucker took the loss, allowing seven earned runs on eight hits, with two walks and two strikeouts. The Panthers had seven errors.
Section 2AA
The Panthers drew the No. 7 seed in the south sub-section of Section 2AA and travel to face No. 2 seed WEM Friday, May 22 at 3:30 p.m. The winner plays Tuesday, May 26 at 5 p.m. at the site of the higher seeded team. The sub-section finals are Thursday, May 28 at the higher seeded team. The winner’s bracket finals aree Saturday, May 30 at 11 a.m. at St. Peter. The Section 2AA title game is Thursday, June 4 at 5 p.m. at St. Peter.