The wins have been tough to come by for the United South Central baseball team and Thursday night it was excruciatingly tough as the Rebels fell 3-1 in eight innings to Maple River.

USC (9-10, 7-5 Gopher) and Maple River were embroiled in an intense pitcher’s duel as Nick Fure toed the rubber for USC and Michael Osmundson stood opposite.

Osmundson got the better of Fure in the eighth inning when Jordan Dreger hit a two-run shot that barely cleared the fence in left field that lifted the Eagles to a 3-1 win.

“Nick threw a great game, their kid threw a great game and it was just a good baseball game in general,” said Rebels head coach Pat Frank. “The kid gets up and knocks one 317 (feet) and they win the ball game.”

Osmundson and Fure threw six shutout innings before the Eagles finally scored in the top of the seventh when Cam Lindblom scored on a double by Jacob Malakowsky.

The Rebels appeared destined for their sixth loss in their last seven games as they entered the bottom of the seventh inning, but Chad Roche’s bloop single gave USC life with one out.

Roche advanced to second on the ensuing throwing error and came around to score on Eric Lackey’s RBI single.

Then things got excruciating.

Zach Wigern reached on an error and Lackey wheeled around third and was headed for home to score the game-winning run on the play when he stepped on Frank’s foot and fell to the ground. USC was left to marvel at its misfortune.

“We battled back, had kind of a fluke deal where Lackey tripped over my foot,” Frank said. “We just didn’t get it in. Right now we’re just not getting the breaks that we need to to win baseball games.”

With Lackey at third and Wigern at second with one out the Rebels had two opportunities to get the runs in, but couldn’t cash in.

Osmundson and Fure matched each other inning for inning for six frames. Osmundson and Fure both allowed 10 hits and neither allowed a walk until the seventh inning. Fure struck out six and Osmundson had five strikeouts as both threw more than 110 pitches.

“It was pretty good going against some one 8 miles away from us,” Fure said. “A good rival game. He did a pretty good job, too, putting up zeros.”

Still it was clear the USC offense needs work. In four of the past five games the Rebels have been held to one run or less.

“We haven’t been scoring as many runs as we should,” Fure said. “Our bats aren’t as good as they were at the beginning of the year.”

Maple River 3, USC 1, 8 innings

Maple River 000 000 12 — 3 10 2

USC 000 000 10 — 1 10 3

WP — Michael Osmundson 8 IP, 10 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K

LP — Nick Fure 8 IP, 10 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 K