SEVEN COME ELEVENS
Win Streak Over as Braves Trip Tigers

--By Brett Kruschke

Belle Plaine ran their win streak to seven until CCL-Red leading Le Sueur came to town and rode Mike Fritz's right wing to a 3-1 victory. The Tiger Train's Roller Coaster of Love has left them at .500-11-11 overall, 10-8 in the CCL. The Tigers had beaten Victoria last Tuesday, 5-2, to tie their longest winning streak since their last state tournament appearance in 2001.

El Tigre hosted Gaylord last night; a summary will appear in next week's Herald. The Tigers will enjoy some time off over the holiday before beginning the stretch run on Monday at the Prior Lake Jays, game time 7:30pm. League playoffs begin on Monday, July 21st, following BBQ Days weekend. The Tigers are currently in line for a home game that night, the starting time 7:30pm as usual.

Victoria 2 @ BP 5 (Tuesday, June 24th)
Jeff Witt's soul mate-manager Mike Poppitz-and his Victoria Vics arrived at Tiger Park for Belle Plaine's fifth consecutive home game. The Platters' "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" wasn't cued up, but probably should have been.

"Ask Zip" Zellmann drew the mound assigment from Manager Kruschke, and quite frankly he was hotter than a two-dollar pistol. The Gambler dazzled for five innings before running out of steam in the sixth, leaving with a 3-2 lead. The tall lefty avoided his patented 3-2 counts, fanning seven while walking nary a batter.

With the game in the balance, the call went out to the Oil Man, Randy Stender. Randito staved off a squeeze attempt in the sixth, then worked a scoreless seventh before handing the ball off to The Mad Hungarian, Al Hrbosky, I mean Jeff Miller.

Miller walked his first man but then sat down six straight, including the last four by strikeout. Like Crash Davis said in Bull Durham, "I wouldn't dig in if I was you." The Dogger was blowing smoke and had young children (and a few Vics?) running for their mommies as he stalked around the mound. Miller was credited with his first save of the season.

Offensively, four Tigers collected two hits. Pat Schultz had a double, two RBI and two steals. The young yet savvy catcher is pacing the team with a .436 average-mention that for fifty cents off your next haircut at Brad's Barber Shop.

Le Sueur 3 @ BP 1 (Sunday, June 29th)
The Braves entered the game with a crisp 10-3 league record, and a big reason why is the arrival of righthander Mike Fritz, whom Belle Plaine had not yet seen but certainly heard about. To paraphrase Lilly von Stupp from Blazing Saddles, "Is it true what they say about your pitcher being gifted? Oh, it's true! It's true! It's true, it's true!"

Taking the pill for the Big Grrr was Dan Huber, who's established himself as a big-game pitcher this year. Runs would be at a premium... so it was much to the Tigers' chagrin when two errors led to two runs in Le Sueur's first at-bat.

In the home half of the fourth, Pat Schultz laced a two-out double. Miller had an inspiring at-bat, fouling off pitch after pitch, before finally delivering Schultz with an RBI single to right. Fritz put the clamps on after that, retiring eleven in a row until Adam Hoffman reached in the eighth via error. Daron Anderson also coaxed a walk to bring on Trace Selly with two outs, but a comebacker to the pitcher ended the rally.

In the ninth, the Braves tabbed an insurance run, also unearned on a throwing error. Huber went the distance, yielding four hits and five walks, not bad considering the pea-sized strike zone employed by the blue on this day. Some credit should go to Le Sueur's patient approach, something that is not a strength of the Tigers.

Fritz ironically recorded his first three punchouts of the night in the ninth, setting the power trio of Moriarty, Schultz, and Miller down in order. And while acknowleding their counterparts' fine effort, the collective thought in Tiger minds was a wasted gem by Huber, with three unearned runs. "Gol dangit," as A-Hoff would say.

This page was created and maintained by Nick Kornder, Sports Information Director at the University of Minnesota, Crookston. The views and ideas on this page are that of the author, and not those of the University of Minnesota.