Bulldogs take a run at No. 1 St. Ansgar

Published 12:36 am Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Lake Mills had a chance to knock off the newly ranked No. 1 team in Class 2A baseball Tuesday night in Lake Mills, but early walks and errors got in the way.

St. Ansgar (29-1) put five runs across in the first inning and held off the Bulldogs (19-12) for a 9-7 win in the first game of a doubleheader. The Saints picked up a sweep with a 13-9 win in the second game.

Lake Mills walked three hitters, committed two errors and hit a batter in the first inning against St. Ansgar and it proved the difference.

Email newsletter signup

The Bulldogs rallied after an initial 6-1 deficit to tie the game in the third, but the Saints got two more runs in the fourth and one in the fifth to hang on.

Lake Mills outhit St. Ansgar 13-6 in the game, but the upset wasn’t to happen.

“It would have been fun, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” said Bulldogs head coach Jason Blaser. “I don’t know how many times as a coach you can tell your team you did everything right except for the score.”

Six of the nine runs scored by St. Ansgar reached on a walk or an error.

Levi Dahle, Royce Byrnes and Drey LyBarger each hit solo homers for Lake Mills in the loss.

The second game was more of the same as eight walks in the fourth inning aided a nine-run outburst from the Saints.

St. Ansgar also hit two home runs, a double and a single in the inning.

One of the bright spots was Lake Mills tallied 10 hits in the game and 23 for the night. That should give the Bulldogs confidence if they should face the Saints in a possible second-round matchup in the playoffs.

“I told the guys after the game I was real pleased we got double digit hits against a real good ball team,” Blaser said.

Lake Mills starts the postseason Saturday with Osage in Osage. The winner would likely face St. Ansgar in the next round.

St. Ansgar 9, Lake Mills 7, 5 innings

St. Ansgar 510 21x x — 9 6 2

Lake Mills 141 10x x — 7 13 3

WP — Casey Mayer 1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 0 K

LP — Drey LyBarger 3 IP, 4 H, 8 R, 5 ER, 5 BB, 2 K

St. Ansgar 13, Lake Mills 9

St. Ansgar 013 90x x — 13 10 3

Lake Mills 010 53x x — 9 10 1

WP — Dallas Hendrikson 4 IP, 6 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 6 BB, 4 K

LP — Wade Hebrink 3 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB