Staff photo by Ari Selvey
Sleepy Eye’s Arian Saenz swings at a pitch during a Section 2A Baseball Tournament game with New Ulm Cathedral on Saturday at ISG Field in Mankato.
MANKATO — New Ulm Cathedral took down Sleepy Eye 6-3 on Saturday at ISG field to advance to the Section 2A Baseball Tournament Championship.
The Greyhounds will need one win Thursday at ISG Field to return to the state tournament for the second year in a row. First pitch is scheduled for 5 p.m. If the Greyhounds lose that game, a second game will follow at 7:15 p.m., with the winner advancing to state.
Sleepy Eye will play the winner of Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s and Springfield on Tuesday night at Mankato East High School in the elimination bracket finals.
Carter Haala picked up the win for Cathedral, getting six strikeouts while allowing eight hits and three earned runs in a complete game. At the plate for the Greyhounds, Kyle Seidl was 2 for 4 with an RBI and a run scored, while Levi Franta was 2 for 3 with a run scored. Matt Seidl was 2 for 4 with two runs scored.
Nick Mielke took the loss for the Indians, getting six strikeouts while allowing six hits and two earned runs in 5 1/3 innings pitched. Cody Schultz led Sleepy Eye at the plate, getting two hits and an RBI. Winsten Nienhaus had two hits, an RBI and a run scored.
Cathedral opened up the scoring in the third inning, but Sleepy Eye responded with a score of their own to tie the game up 1-1. Sleepy Eye scored twice more in the bottom of the fourth to go up 3-1.
Cathedral then scored in the next three innings — once in the fifth on an error, twice in the sixth on a sacrifice fly by Jake Finstad and a single by Kyle Seidl, and twice more in the seventh on an error to go up 6-3.
“We had scoring opportunities in the first and second,” Cathedral head coach Alan Woitas said. “And we maybe came up a little empty-handed there, but it put a little pressure on them. They made a few mistakes late, and we were able to capitalize on those. Credit to their kids, they played really well. Nick Mielke was an incredible pitcher, he made it tough on the mound. We fought at the plate and battled and made him compete the whole time.”