Greyhounds rally past Crusaders

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau
New Ulm Cathedral’s Jake Finstad slides into third safely during a nonconference baseball game against Mankato Loyola Tuesday at Mueller Park in New Ulm.

NEW ULM — New Ulm Cathedral rallied for two runs in the bottom of the sixth and Greyhounds right-hander Jake Finstad worked out of a seventh-inning jam as Cathedral topped Mankato Loyola 7-5 in a nonconference baseball game Tuesday at Mueller Park.

Levi Franta got the win for Cathedral, now 12-3. He went six innings and allowed five runs on six hits and two walks while striking out four. Finstad got the save, allowing two hits before retiring the last three hitters.

Jackson Haala was saddled with the loss for the Crusaders, who fell to 8-4.

Elliott Schabert had two hits for Cathedral, with Colin Anderson driving in two runs.

Christian Theuninck and Cam Fogel each had two hits for Loyola.

Greyhounds head coach Alan Woitas said that a rare bad first inning by his team was erased with a comeback by his team.

“It was not our best first inning for sure,” Woitas said. “And Loyola capitalized on our mistakes.”

The Crusaders pushed across three runs in the opening inning when T.J. O’Malley walked and Theuninck singled. An infield error loaded the bases before a wild pitch made it 1-0.

A groundout and another infield single upped the Crusaders’ lead to 3-0.

Loyola made it 4-0 in the third when Eddie Engen led off with a walk and eventually came around to score on a wild pitch.

But the Greyhounds, who have a tough Tomahawk Conference game Thursday at Springfield, began their comeback in the home half of the third when Finstad reached on a one-out infield single. He raced to third on a Franta single and scored on a balk.

The Crusaders upped their lead to 5-1 in the top of the fourth before the Greyhounds mounted a three-run bottom of the fourth after two were out.

Schabert was hit by a pitch before Joey Schugel lined a single to center.

Alex Portner walked to load the bases.

Finstad was hit by a pitch to force in a run and a Colin Anderson single cut the lead to 5-4.

“Our guys never went away,” Woitas said. “We continued to battle at the plate — we put a lot of balls in play — and Levi did a real good job settling down in the third through the sixth inning.”

Cathedral would use that to tie the game in the bottom of the fifth inning with a run.

Brock Wellmann singled and a two-out Schabert double knotted the game up.

Cathedral then scored two runs in the bottom of the sixth with the first run coming because of some confusion by the Crusaders’ pitcher.

Finstad led off with a walk and took off for second on a stolen base. That is when the confusion started from Haala.

“It was kind of a goofy play there,” Woitas said. “He [Haala] probably balked [on Finstad’s steal of second] and they did not call it.”

But Haala threw the ball towards second and the ball sailed into center field, with Finstad motoring all the way home for a 6-5 lead.

“Jake was smart enough to just keep running,” Woitas added. “Keep running until I tell him to stop — so we capitalized on their mistake and that is what good teams do.”

Franta was hit by a pitch and then later scored on a Caleb Forstner single.

Loyola put together a threat in the top of the seventh when Fogel led off with a double off Finstad, who had come in in the top of the inning.

Engen singled to put Crusaders on first and third with no outs.

But Finstad got the next two batters on strikes before getting the final out of the game on a lazy fly ball to himself.

“They put two good swings on pitches early — they were up there ready to attack — but then he struck the next two out and then got a pop-up,” Woitas said. “He is a guy who is not going to back down from a challenge. He is the kind of guy you want in those late-game situations.”