SLEEPY EYE - Joey Walter's solo home run in the fourth inning made the difference as Sleepy Eye held off Springfield for a 5-4 victory in amateur baseball Sunday.
Andrew Woitas picked up the victory for the Indians. He went eight-plus innings and allowed eight hits and four runs.
Mike Salazar took the loss for Springfield. He pitched five innings and gave up four runs on nine hits. Max Salazar pitched four innings in relief and allowed just one run on four hits.
Woitas retired the first 10 batters before allowing three straight hits in the fourth inning. Matt Vogel (2-for-3) hit a one-out single to right field and Alex Fink followed with a base hit. Ryan Sturm kept the trend going with another hit to right field, and Springfield cut Sleepy Eye's lead to 3-1.
Walter led off the fourth inning with a solo home run over the right field fence, but that was all the scoring for Sleepy Eye until it got an important insurance run in the eighth.
Alan Woitas reached on an error, and two batters later Andrew Woitas hit a double to left field to pick up his third RBI of the game.
Andrew Woitas allowed back-to-back doubles to start the ninth inning that cut Sleepy Eye's lead to 5-3. Head coach Bruce Woitas changed pitchers and gave Matt Helget a chance to close out the game.
Helget got Ryan Sturm to fly out, but then a sacrifice fly from Christian Loomis scored Fink and cut the deficit to one run.
Marc Salazar stepped up with the tying run on second and two outs; however, Helget got him to ground out to third, and Sleepy Eye held on for the victory.
"Early on Andrew pitched well, and we played good defense behind him," coach Bruce Woitas said. "We missed a lot of opportunities to add to our lead - we left a lot of runners in scoring position. In the end they made a game out of it, and we had to battle to hang onto it. Matt Helget did a nice job coming in and throwing strikes for us and getting us out of that last inning."
Sleepy Eye improves to 11-6 on the season while Springfield falls to 7-7.