Kenyon-Wanamingo Baseball Suffers First Loss

The Stewartville Tigers handed Kenyon-Wanamingo their first loss of the baseball season 7-3 Thursday in Wanamingo.

Knights senior Owen Hilke got his first work in of the spring on the mound after recovering from a severely broken leg during football last fall.  It appeared he was pretty excited to be pitching again.  In the top of the first inning he hit a batter and loaded the bases with a couple walks.

Hilkey also struck out two batters before getting out of the inning with no runs scored.  He threw 30 total pitches, 16 of them balls.

Stewartville senior Jack Patten was very efficient on the hill.  He threw 34 total pitches through the first three innings, 24 strikes.

Tigers sophmore Brady Pickett coaxed a walk to open the third inning. He then stole second base.  #3 hitter junior Parker Klavetter stroked an RBI single.  Junior Riley Eickoff was safe on an error.

Following a strikeout junior Eli Klavetter hit a single to load the bases.  Senior Noah Looney hit a 2 run single to make the score 3-0 in favor of Stewartville.

Hilkey had a 31 pitch third inning but still took the mound in the 4th.  With two outs in the top of the 4th, Parker Klavetter got a single.  Eckoff was walked.  Klavetter would score on a wild pitch to make the score 4-0 in favor of Stewartville.

Hilkey left after four innings throwing 99 pitches, 59 strikes.  The senior left  handed pitcher fanned 6 batters, walked 4, allowed 5 hits.

The score was Stewartville 4 Cannon Falls 0.

In the bottom of the 5th inning Alec Johnson led off by being hit by a pitch.  Following a fly out Craig walked.  There was a strikeout looking for the second out. Hilkey then clubbed a two RBI single to bring the score to 4-3.

Stewartville answered in the top of the 6th inning.  Gavin Sommer was on the mound.  Top of the order batter, junior Owen Sikkink hit a ball up the middle.  He then stole second base and wound up scoring on an error to make it 5-3 in favor of the Tigers.

Stewartville would get a couple insurance runs in the 7th inning.

Eli Klaveteer hit the first pitch he saw against Trevor Steberg, went to second on a wild pitch.  Looney bunted him to 3rd base.  Junior Chase Neubauer was hit by a pitch placing runners at the corners.

Neubauer stole second base.  Following the second out Sikkink and Pickett achieved singles.  Bray Olson was the final pitcher for Kenyon-Wanamingo.  He threw to one batter and got him to fly out to centerfield.

The Tigers brought Eickhoff in to pitch in the bottom of the 7th.  Patten finished his 6 innings with 3 hits allowed.  He struck out four batters, hit two batters, allowed 3 walks.

The senior righty threw 89 pitches in 6 innings, 55 for strikes.  Patten got the win, Hilkey took the loss.

Stewartville finished the game with 6 stolen bases.  Kenyon-Wanamingo recorded three of their six strikeouts looking.

The line totals in my scorebook were:

Stewartville   7 runs   10 hits   2 errors

Kenyon-Wanamingo   3 runs, 5 hits  2 errors

The game took two hours and 16 minutes.

The Tigers are 3-2. The Knights fall to 3-1.

Kenyon-Wanamingo travels to Goodhue for a doubleheader Saturday.  First pitch of first game is scheduled for 11:00 a.m.

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