The Zumbrota-Mazeppa Cougars never trailed in a 3-1 victory over the Cannon Falls Bombers in Zumbrota tonight.  Cougars Head Coach Mike Matuska had to be scratching his head over the three members of his team picked off the bases but a win is a win.

Senior lefty Peyton Liffrig started the game for Z-M throwing 63 pitches over the first three innings.  31 for strikes, fanned 4 batters and walked 5.  Liffrig gave up 2 hits and allowed 0 runs.  Junior righty Spencer Krohn threw the remaining four innings with 61 pitches thrown, 40 for strikes.  Krohn struck out 5, walked none, gave up two hits while retiring the last 10 batters he faced.

Junior right handed pitcher Cord Lingelbach started the game for Cannon Falls going 2 plus innings.  All three Cougars runs were charged to Lingelbach who ended up throwing 55 pitches, 24 for strikes with 1 strikeout and 5 walks.  Junior third baseman Jack Dommeyer ended up throwing four innings of shutout ball.  Dommeyer fanned 2 batters, walked 3, one intentionally.  He allowed 8 hits but no runs.

The Cougars started the scoring in the bottom of the second inning when sophomore third baseman Kaleb Stensland was walked to start the inning. Senior Jackson Steuber executed a nice bunt  to get Stensland into scoring position.  After a strikeout to get the second out. two more walks were issued to the #8 and #9 batters.

Stensland scored on a wild pitch.  In the bottom of the third inning Liffrig walked to start the inning and scored when sophomore left fielder Willy Holm crunched a double.  Cannon Falls Head Coach Tyler Quinlan then made a pitching change with junior Jack Dommeyer coming in from third base and senior Dylan Sally went to third base.  Cougars cleanup hitter, junior catcher Luke Krier worked the count to 3-1 before smacking an RBI single to right field to give Zumbrota-Mazeppa a 3-0 lead.

The Bombers got a two out rally in the fourth inning.  The first two batters Krohn faced were struck out swinning and looking before senior center fielder Nathan Stein clubbed a two strike single. Stein ended up at second base when Krohn tossed the ball to first base over the head of the first baseman.  Junior shortstop Luke Sjoquist had a two strike RBI single before Krohn retired the final 10 Cannon Falls batters of the game.

The final line totals looked like this in my scorebook.  Zumbrota-Mazeppa had 3 runs on 10 hits with 1 error and 12 runners left on base, 8 in scoring position.  Cannon Falls finished with 1 run on 4 hits, 1 error, 6 runners left on base, 5 in scoring position.

The Bombers drop to 10-4 and Cougars went to 4-9 with the win.  Zumbrota-Mazeppa goes to Goodhue Friday then Triton Monday.  Cannon Falls hosts Maple River Tuesday before hosting Triton on Friday.

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