Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm VFW Gold’s Josh Seidl slides into home scoring the winning run after a Mason Cox base hit in the bottom of the seventh inning against Shakopee on Friday at Franklin Rogers Park in Mankato. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

By Travis Rosenau

Journal Sports Writer

MANKATO — With a walk-off single by Mason Cox in the bottom of the seventh, New Ulm VFW Gold continues its play in the winner’s bracket.

Gold defeated Shakopee 3-2 in a second round District 2 VFW playoff game on Friday at Franklin Rogers Park.

New Ulm moves on to face fellow-unbeaten Farmington at noon on Saturday at Franklin Rogers Park.

Aaron Portner pitched a solid complete game for Gold, allowing four hits, no walks and two runs with four strikeouts. He sent down the first 11 batters he faced.

With a 1-0 Gold lead after three innings and Portner cruising along, Shakopee had to get things going in the fourth. With two outs in the fourth, Shakopee strung together four-straight hits off of Portner for two runs to lead 2-1.

Portner shook off that one rough inning after, though, finishing the game with six 1-2-3 innings. With two outs in the bottom of the sixth, Cox got aboard on a single to right.

Teddy Giefer then knocked a double down the right field line to bring Cox around to score and tie the game at 2-2.

Giefer had some pressure on him with two outs, but with a runner on first, he knew that he just had to make solid contact.

“We had two down and Mason got on, so I figured I just gotta put the bat on the ball,” Giefer said. “I put the bat on the ball, found the right spot and got him in.”

In the bottom of the seventh, Josh Seidl and Alex Hillesheim reached on a pair of one-out singles. After a strikeout gave Gold just one more out to work with, Cox went to the plate and delivered the game-ending RBI on a base hit.

“Our coach always talks about championship teams picking each other up and when Braden [Zimmerman] struck out, that went through my head,” Cox said. “‘I gotta pick him up now and now it’s my turn. I gotta get this run in.’ And it was a big run.”

With each victory, the pressure and challenge usually increases. Cox is optimistic about Saturday, though, and he knows what he and his teammates can do.

“We’ve got to come ready to play again,” Cox said. “We gotta stay hot with the bats. Our pitcher did really well today and threw strikes. We had really good defense and no errors today, so we just gotta do that again tomorrow.”

Cox went 2 for 3 with the winning RBI, while Giefer went 1 for 2 with his RBI in the sixth. Hillesheim also had two hits for Gold and Noah Hauge added a double.