After beating Freeport 6-2 on Saturday, the Opole Bears traveled to St. Mathias on Sunday and brought home a 5-2 win over the Devils, improving to 7-2 this season.
This game got started a real pitchers battle as both starters, Tate Lange for Opole and Alex Guggisberg for St. Mathias, retired the first 9 men they faced.
But that all changed in the top of the 4th when Opole struck for 4 runs to grab the lead. Masyn Patrick led off the top of the 4th with a double to left and Isaiah Folsom reached on a Devils error with Patrick staying at 2nd. A single by Mavrick Novitski loaded the bases for Luke Bieniek. He hit a ground ball for a force out at 2nd, scoring Patrick on the play. After Bieniek stole 2nd, Alex Lange ripped a single to left, plating Folsom to make it 2-0. After Alex Guggisberg got a pop out to 3rd for the 2nd out, Alex Lange stole 2nd and Tate Lange then delivered a 2-run single to bring home both Bieniek and Lange to give Opole a 4-0 lead.
St. Mathias got 1 of those runs back in the bottom of the 4th when Konnor Wicklund singled with 1 out, followed by a double to center by Bryce Flanagan. Hunter Wicklund then grounded out with Konnor Wicklund scoring on the play to make it 4-1.
In the top of the 6th, Opole got a Mavrick Novitski lead-off single, a walk to Luke Bieniek and an Alex Lange sacrifice bunt scored Novitski and moved Bieniek to 2nd with 1 out to make it 5-1.
In the bottom of the 8th, with David Heinen now on the mound for the Bears, Crew Dahlheimer went down on strikes, followed by a walk to Josh Kossan. Heinen then struck out Konnor Wicklund for the 2nd out but walked Bryce Flanagan to put 2 men on base. Hunter Wicklund then singled to to center, scoring Kossan to make it 5-2, but Hunter Wicklund was thrown out trying to advance to 2nd to end the inning.
In the bottom of the 9th, the Devils did get a couple of hits off David Heinen when Marcus Lennartson led off with a single, but then Alex Guggisberg grounded into a 5-4-3 double play. Elijah Ko9ssan then singled for St. Mathias but David Heinen got Kyle Welle to ground out to shortstop Tate Lange to end the game and lock up the Bears 5-2 win.
Opole 5 6 0 – 5
St. Mathias 2 8 1 – 2
WP: Tate Lange 7.0IP 1 run 5 hits 9k 0bb
David Heinen 2.0IP 1 run 3 hits 2k 2bb
LP: Alex Guggisberg 9.0IP 5 runs 6 hits 3k 1bb
Bears:
Masyn Patrick 1-4 2B, run
Isaiah Folsom 0-4 run
Mavrick Novitski 2-4 run
Luke Bieniek 0-3 bb, rbi, run
Alex Lange 1-4 2 rbi, run
Dierks Opatz 0-4
Tate Lange 1-4 2 rbi
Dominic Hoikka 1-4
Hunter Boeckermann 0-2 sac
Devils:
Josh Kossan 0-3 bb, run
Konnor Wicklund 2-4 run
Bryce Flanagan 2-3 2B, bb
Hunter Wicklund 1-4 2 rbi
Marcus Lennartson 1-4
Alex Guggisberg 1-4
Elijah Tautges 0-2
– Elijah Kossan 1-2
Kyle Welle 0-4
Nate Eschenbacher 0-1
– Crew Dahlheimer 0-2
– Kyper DeRosier 0-0