The New Richland Reds continued their winning ways Wednesday night when they beat up on the Wells Wildcats (2-9) in an 11-1 victory at New Richland’s Legion Field.

Just two weeks ago the Reds were one game below .500 at 5-6, but a 14-1 win over the Wildcats on June 29 sparked a five game winning streak that has New Richland sitting pretty at 10-6. Wednesday’s win gives the Reds two wins over Wells this season by a combined score of 25-2.

“That was a good win, we are playing some real winning baseball right now,” said Reds head coach Jason Churchill. “We didn’t take them for granted, but we wanted to come out early and jump on them hard and that’s what we did.”

With starter and eventual winning pitcher Brady Hullopeter throwing darts on the mound and collecting 10 strikeouts over seven innings, the Reds jumped on Wells for seven runs in the first two innings including six in the second.

In the first two innings patience was the name of the game at the plate for New Richland as they pushed all seven runs across the plate on just four hits, but collected six walks that also accounted for two of the runs. Churchill, Chris Somage, and Phil Olsen each singled while Seth Tukua got the first of two extra base hits by the Reds with a double to left-center field.

After the disaster that was the first two innings where he gave up seven runs on four hits, six walks, and two runs walked in, Wells starter Eric Niebuhr settled down and pitched the next five innings with only one free pass.

“We were a little worried about going four or five innings without scoring but you have to give their pitcher credit, he got in a zone after the first two innings,” Churchill said.

Holding onto an 8-1 advantage heading to the bottom of the eighth, an Aaron Gilliard double, and two more walks allowed the Reds to score three more times to put the game away by 10-run rule.

Tukua led all players with three hits, including a double and two singles with a run scored while teammates Gilliard and Somage added two hits each.

“The playoffs are coming soon and we feel like we are playing pretty good ball, but I also think we can still take it up another notch,” said Churchill.

New Richland 11, Wells 1

Wells – 000 000 10x 1 5 3

N.R. – 160 001 03x 11 7 0

WP – Brady Hullopeter 7 IP, 1 R, 5 H, 10 K, 4 BB

LP – Eric Niebuhr 8 IP, 11 R, 7 H, 3 K, 9 BB