It was far from perfect but the New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva baseball team found a way to pull out a 5-2 victory Friday over St. Clair in St. Clair.

The Panthers (10-8, 5-6 Gopher) committed eight errors in the game but two big hits from a pair of freshmen got the job done.

In the sixth inning freshman Jared Reyant, just called up from the junior varsity, connected on a solo homer that got the NRHEG offense ignited.

After Reyant’s home run, the Panthers loaded the bases and had Matt Tomsche lay down a suicide squeeze bunt that worked to perfection to push a run across as NRHEG built a 3-0 lead.

Freshman Mitch Akemann drove in two more runs on a triple that gave the Panthers a 5-0 lead.

St. Clair responded for two runs in the bottom half of the inning after NRHEG booted the ball around.

After the sixth inning the rain came and the game was called.

Adam Lewer threw six strong innings, giving up two unearned runs on four hits and striking out five for the win.

“Our pitching is pretty decent right now,” Panthers head coach Jeff Reese said. “We just have to get our defense more consistent.”

NRHEG will play two games Monday, one home and one away. The Panthers will face Albert Lea in Albert Lea at 4 p.m. then head back to New Richland to play Holy Family Catholic in a makeup game. Following Monday the section playoffs begin Thursday with the fifth-seeded Panthers traveling to Wells to face the No. 4 seed USC. The two teams split the regular season meetings, USC won the first game 11-4 and NRHEG took the second 10-0 in five innings.

NRHEG 5, St. Clair 2, 6 innings

NRHEG 010 004 x — 5 7 8

St. Clair 000 002 x — 2 4 4

WP — Adam Lewer 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 5 K

LP — Michael Drager 6 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 3 K