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12U Gold Participates in Morris Tournament

By Steve King, 07/01/19, 6:30PM CDT

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The Otter 12U Gold team traveled to Morris Saturday and played 19 innings of baseball on a very hot and windy day. The young Otters had a chance to win all three games but were walked-off in their final two games after winning game one. The Otter Gold team has been working hard on fundamentals the past few practices and it paid off with solid play Saturday.

In game one, pitching and defense led the way as the Otters beat Sartell 3-2 in a thriller. The bats were quiet for both teams early in the game and Sartell grabbed a 1-0 lead in the second. The Otters finally got on the board in the fourth when Robert Ehlert reached on a fielder’s choice and came around to score on singles by Garrett Kuhn-Rice and Alex Ellison.

The Otters broke the tie in the bottom of the fifth inning. Andrew Klinnert led off the inning with a double and Isaac Ellison walked. Ellison stole second to put runners on second and third. The next two batters struck out, but Isaac Iverson clutched up and delivered a two out, two run single to put the Otters up 3-1.

The top of the sixth and final inning was very intense as Sartell battled back. They were able to string together a couple of hits to push a run across to make the score 3-2 and had the tying run on second base with one out. The Sartell batter hit a ground ball and the Otters got out number two at first base. First baseman Alex Ellison noticed that the runner on second had advanced to third and was caught between home and third. The Sartell runner wanted to go back to third so Ellison got the ball to third baseman Logan Larson. Larson executed the rundown perfectly and made a good throw to catcher Boston Rosin. Rosin was in position to make the play at the plate and the runner tried to avoid the tag and head back to third but was called out for being out of the base path. The game ended on that very alert and well executed double play and the Otters had a nice 3-2 win.

Isaac Ellison pitched two innings and gave up one run. Kuhn-Rice pitched the final four for the win and only gave up one run. Both pitchers were helped by some fine defensive play.

The Otter Gold team jumped to an early lead in game two against New London-Spicer (NLS) but had trouble scoring late and a couple of defensive mistakes led to a 9-8 extra inning loss.

The Otters had the bats going early and scored five in the top of the first. Levi King led off the game with a long triple to left center. He scored on a base hit by Iverson. That was followed by a single by Larson, an RBI single by Alex Ellison, and a two run single by Kuhn-Rice. Rosin singled in another run for a 5-0 top of the first lead.

NLS scored a run in the bottom of the first to make the score 5-1 but the Otters added a couple more in the second. Lucas Hanson led off the inning with a single and he came home on another long triple by King. Iverson picked up and RBI scoring King on a groundout to make the score 7-1 Otters. King was cruising along on the mound and the defense was making the plays until the fourth inning. NLS was able to bunch together some hits and a few Otter mistakes led to four NLS runs and a 7-5 score.

Hanson led off the top of the fifth with a single, stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch. King picked up his second RBI of the game with a groundout to make the score 8-5. NLS scored a single run in the fifth for an 8-6 score.

NLS scored a run in the bottom of the sixth to make the score 8-7 and the Otters had a chance to put the game away, but with two outs and the tying run on third, the Otters made an error and allowed the run to score and we went to extras.

The Otters went quickly in the top of the seventh and NLS used a walk and a base hit to win the game 9-8.

King pitched well and was relieved by Isaac Ellison who did an outstanding job in relief. It also needs to be mentioned that Isaac Iverson hopped behind the plate when the heat caught up to a couple of players and really showed what a great teammate he is, catching the final four innings and doing a great job.

The third game of the day put the Otters against the host team, the Morris Tigers. Morris has a strong program, but the Otters battled and led most of the game but couldn’t quite finish. The Otters grabbed a 1-0 lead in the top of the first and then really had some nice at bats in the top of the second to score five runs. Klinnert walked and Isaac Ellison singled. That was followed by back to back walks to Hanson and Ethan Schwartz to score a run. King picked up two more runs batted in with a double and he scored on an error and the Otters had a 6-0 lead after an inning and a half.

Isaac Iverson got out from behind the plate and took the mound and pitched very well. He held the hard hitting tigers to a single run through two innings. The Tigers did get things going in the third as they scored four runs but the Otters still led 6-5. They pushed across another run in the fifth to tie the game 6-6 going into the final inning.

The Otters took advantage of four walks and Lucas Hanson getting hit by a pitch to score three runs to take a 9-6 lead going into the bottom of the sixth. A couple of hits and a costly two run error by the Otters led to four runs for the Tigers and a walk-off 10-9 win.

Iverson started and he got very good relief help from Kuhn-Rice. Larson really did a great job pitching and finishing up for the Otters. Boston Rosin really showed his toughness behind the plate as he took a hard foul ball of the thigh. Boston hardly flinched and completed the game and did a great job of picking his teammates up.

Even though the Otters lost two tough games, it was fun to see them compete and improve. They will take the week of the fourth off and play in Sauk Centre Tuesday July 9.