Mohawks rally late over Saints
MASON CITY — St. Ansgar started out hot, getting five hits, was hit by a pitch and reached on a few errors in batting around to take an early 5-0 lead against Class 4A school Mason City.
The Saints added single runs in the second, third and fourth innings, but opportunities for more dried up and the Mohawks started to get a little momentum of their own in an eventual 10-8 loss.
“I think we had momentum most of the game, to be honest with you,” Saints coach Devin Schwiesow said. “We didn’t come up with that big hit early when we could have put a few more crooked runs on the board early, they started to get momentum offensively. They are a good hitting team up and down the lineup, they are a 4A team that has won a lot of ball games, so we knew we had to continue to get runs and I think the momentum was still in our favor. We weren’t expected to come and compete for this game, we still had momentum, but like I said offensively, we knew they were going to come and score runs.”
Case in point, the Saints had the bases loaded after scoring the sole run in the second, but the threat ended to a deep fly to right. St. Ansgar also left the bases loaded in the fourth.
Throughout the game, Mason City commit-ted seven errors, including a couple pick-off attempts that sailed on the first baseman. The Saints committed no errors. However, after Mason City had pulled to within 8-6, the Mohawk defense posted its first 1-2-3 inning of the game in the fifth.
“They gave us some free bases, we took advantage of it early, we didn’t take advantage of it late,” coach Schwiesow said. “They continued to make errors in the game, and we could have put more crooked numbers up and didn’t. That was the big difference. If we continued to put crooked numbers up early, they don’t have enough to finish that game.”
Nevertheless, the Saints led up until the fateful sixth when they had troubles put-ting away the final out with a bases-loaded walk, and two straight singles, the last of which was a well-placed blooper just out of reach of the third baseman and left fielder that gave Mason City the 10-8 final score.
In the end, the Mohawks out-hit the Saints 14-12.
There were some heated moments with both teams getting warned by the field umpire.
“I’m not sure what happened there,” Schwiesow said. “I think we were trying to communicate to our players and I’m not sure what the ump thought there, quite honestly, and after the game there was no hard feelings between coaches or anything, two guys trying to compete.”
St Ansgar 511 100 0 – 8 12 0
Mason C 022 114 X – 10 14 7
WINNING BATTERY — Cooper Wiemann, Kaden Tyler (2), Carter Thomas (7) and Tyler, Wiemann (2). LOSING BATTERY — Carsen Sparrow, Alex Hansen (3), Max Beland (6), Jayce Schwiesow (6) and Carter Salz. TWO OR MORE HITS — MC (Kellar Malek 3, Thomas, Alex Gold, Connor Dalen, C. Wiemann, Tyler); SA (Justin Horgen 3, Jacob Eberling, Salz, Tate Mayer). 2B — MC (A. Gold); SA (Ryan Cole). 3B — MC (A. Gold). SB — MC (Thomas, Dalen, Kale Hobart, Jorge Rivera). RBI — SA (Horgen 2, Mayer 2, Eberling). MC (Thomas 4, Tyler 2, Jake Gold 2, Ben Pederson, Aiden Dannen).
