Faribault Lakers Shoot Down Montgomery Mallards

The Faribault Lakers ran their record to 6-0 with a 6-2 win today at Memorial Field in Montgomery. The key to their impressive start has been very good pitching.

Nate Rost started his first game by going seven innings with 10 strikeouts, 1 walk, 5 hits allowed. My scorebook had him with 103 pitches, 73 strikes. When Rost left the game Faribault had a 2-0 lead. Joe Grote threw the final two innings facing 10 batters with 3 strikeouts, 0 walks, 4 hits allowed, 2 earned runs.

Notice just 1 walk for Lakers pitchers. In 52 innings pitched to start the season Faribault pitchers have walked 7 batters while fanning 74. Opponents are hitting .169. Nine different players have pitched with 7 logging 2 innings or more.

The Mallards had hard throwing John Krocak on the hill. He went 8 innings tossing 109 pitches, 79 strikes with 4 strikeouts, 0 walks, 2 hit batters, 6 hits allowed, 0 earned runs in my book.

Faribault got a two out double off the bat of Joe Grote in the third inning. Nate Rost was hit by a pitch. Matt Lane hit a ball between first and second base that resulted in a hustle hit. While the second baseman was trying to flip the ball to the pitcher to get Lane out Grote never hesitated running from second to score on a head first slide between the legs of the catcher.

In the 5th inning Porter Sartor was hit in the head with an 0-2 count pitch. Blake Langerud showed bunt on the first pitch then hit a grounder to first base that advanced Sartor to second. Langerud was out when the first baseman stepped on the bag.

Joe Grote hit a grounder to shortstop. Sartor was thrown out trying to advance to third base. Grote stole second base. Nate Rost smashed a ball right to the first baseman who couldn't squeeze it in his glove because it was absolutely crushed. It deflected into shallow right field and Grote again hustled from second base to score.

Grote came in to pitch in the bottom of the 8th inning. Pat Lloyd greeted him with a double to right field. Following a pop out and strikeout Cole Pint hit the 7th pitch of his at bat to left scoring Lloyd to make it a 2-1 game.

Faribault sent nine men to the plate in the top of the 9th inning against Derek Christianson.

Dylan Valentyn started the inning by getting on base due to an error. Following a pop out and ground out Grote hustled out a infield single. Nate Rost clubbed a RBI double. Matt Lane was hit by a pitch. Jack Helgeson smacked a RBI double ending up at third base thanks to an error on the relay throw to third attempting to get Lane out so he scored on the play.

The Mallards started the bottom of the ninth with back to back singles. Following a wild pitch the two advanced to second and third base. It looked like Montgomery could have the makings of a big inning.

Grote got a strikeout, sacrifice fly RBI and groundout to end the game.

Montgomery falls to 1-6, travels to St. Benedict next Sunday.

The Lakers are at Lonsdale Sunday for a 7:30 p.m. game.

Here are some other reported scores Sunday: