VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – The Valley City Hi-Liners baseball team were coming off arguably their biggest win of the season on Thursday when they beat the defending EDC champs on the road. Valley City was hoping the offense and the winning ways would stay with them on Friday, and indeed it did as the Hi-Liners blow out the Fargo South Bruins 10-0 at Charlie Brown Field.
Valley City would waste no time in getting their offense going as they put up a pair of runs in the bottom of the 1st inning. After a fielding error kept the inning alive, Joe Cummings would drive in the game’s first run with an RBI single. Hi-Liners would add a run in the home half of the second inning, this time it was Gavin Gerhardt who would deliver the RBI single. The 3rd inning saw the local team plate another 2 runs. This time it was in part to another couple of errors by the Bruins, and a sacrifice fly from Max Mehus to extend the VC lead to 5-0. Hi-Liners wouldn’t score in the 4th but the 5th was a different story. The Hi-Liners would push across 5 runs in the bottom of the 5th inning to walk the game off thanks to the mercy rule. In the inning, Braxton Jorissen and Broden Muske would provide RBI singles. Muske’s single scored Gerhardt to end the game at 10-0.
On the mound, the Hi-Liners got an excellent pitching performance from Max Mehus. The righty would go 4 innings giving up 6 hits, 0, runs while striking out 3, he picks up the win. On the other side, Bruins pitcher Anthony Erickson pitched fairly well just his defense could not provide any help.
A major factor in this game was what Fargo South did and did not do. What the Bruins did was strand 8 total base runners. There were a couple of times where Fargo South would have runners in scoring position but could not a run in. What the Bruins did not do was field the ball cleanly. The Fargo South defense had a total of 6 errors, which the Hi-Liners would capitalize on on their way to the big win.
Next up for Hi-Liners is a road game on Tuesday when they will host Grand Forks Red River.