Chokio eliminated from baseball tourney

The New London-Spicer bats have been hot this summer and it continued in this contest against Chokio today. The Twins slugged out 18 hits and made nightmares for the Coyotes pitchers in a 12-3 victory.

The loss by Chokio put them out of the tournament. Minneota's Danny Hennen was drafted to pitch for the Coyotes.

Chokio opened up the scoring in the third inning with having bases loaded with one out and scoring on a fielder’s choice and a double from pitcher Nick Hervin to jump to a 2-0 lead.

New London-Spicer responded with two runs the next frame as catcher Scott Ranbow singled and advanced to third on a Austen Hadley double. Center fielder Wyatt White drove them both home the next at-bat on a line drive single to tie the ball game.

New London-Spicer followed with another big inning in the fifth highlighted with an RBI single from Ranbow, RBI double from Hadley, and both players scoring on the same play from another single by White to make it a 6-2 lead. The Twins never looked back.

The teams exchanged a run each on a sacrifice fly from Zach Howe for the Coyotes and a RBI single from Wyatt White for the Twins to make it 7-3 after seven.

Heading into the eighth inning the Twins managed to put together a huge two-out rally. With designated hitter Andrew Bangen on second, he was driven home by Jake Rambow. After a walk, left fielder Mike Danielson drove home Ranbow on his second single of the game. Scott Ranbow followed up by driving in two runs on a single. Chokio tried to end the misery by changing pitchers after Ranbow’s single. After another single from Hadley, White delivered his sixth RBI of the game on a single to left to score pinch runner Josh Saine which made it 12-3 which would end up being the final score.

Draftee Austin Versteeg from Starbuck was on the mound for the first seven innings for the Twins as he only allowed five hits, three runs, walking two and striking out five.

Wyatt White was four for five with all singles and a total of six RBIs. Scott Ranbow and second baseman Austen Hadley combined went 6-for-9 (four singles, two doubles) with four RBIs as they were the third and fourth hitters in the lineup. 

“We have been hitting the ball well all season. We just had to relax because we know that we are strong up to down and I think that’s what helped us today,” Wyatt White said.

Hennen pitched two-thirds of an inning, faced four batters, struck out one and walked one.

New London-Spicer will play the winner of Jackson v. Sobieski next Saturday.