Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm Legion Blue pitcher Brandon Seidl waits for the ball as Rosetown’s Ben Nelson slides into home during the first game of the Upper Midwest Classic on Thursday at Johnson Park in New Ulm. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

NEW ULM — New Ulm Legion Blue had an errorless defensive effort, but fell short of completing the comeback as Rosetown came away with a 4-3 victory in the opening game of the Upper Midwest Classic on Thursday at Johnson Park.

For Blue coach Ed Tietel, seeing the big zero in the error column is a big deal.

“We’ve been struggling on defense most of the season and, if I’m not mistaken, we had zero errors in this game,” Tietel said. “I’m extremely excited about the way we played defense today. We did a lot of things today that we’ve been working on all season.”

Brandon Seidl toughed it out on his way to taking the loss. He allowed four runs, three earned on eight hits, having gotten out of bases-loaded jams in the second and fourth innings.

“He bulldogged through the game and got us a complete game; I couldn’t ask for much more,” Tietel said of Seidl. “We’ve got a minimum of four games in this tournament and then a doubleheader on Monday, so we needed a pitching performance like that today.”

Blue responded to Rosetown’s two-run second inning with a two-run top of the third, during which Luke Scheid and Ryley Hansen notched RBIs that scored Landon Depew and Jack Fairbairn.

Rosetown took a 4-2 lead after three complete and was on its way to the win behind the arm of Nate Endrizzi.

However, Blue threatened in the top of the sixth, when Kaden Gilb entered the game to pinch-hit in the No. 9 spot and drove in T.J. Sweere to cut Rosetown’s lead to one on a 2-0 count that sailed over the shortstop’s head into shallow left.

“That’s fun to see a kid like that who doesn’t always get a whole lot of playing time, but when he gets his opportunities, he seized it tonight and got a nice RBI single,” Tietel said.

Relief pitcher Chad Savard gathered himself after that, however, and retired the next six batters in order to notch the save. Endrizzi got the win in five innings pitched.

Blue plays twice on Friday. It opens with Brandon Valley at 11 a.m. at Mueller Park and then plays Chaska at 4:30 p.m. at Johnson Park.

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NU Blue 002 001 0 — 3 6 0

Rosetown 022 000 x — 4 8 2

B Seidl and Sweere; Endrizzi, Savard (6) and B Nelson.

W – Endrizzi (R) 5 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 5 BB, 4 K, 92 pitches

L – B Seidl (B) 6 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 2 K, 88 pitches

Sv – Savard (R) 2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K, 28 pitches

Leading hitters – NU Blue: Scheid 1-3 1 RBI, Hansen 1-3 1 RBI, B Seidl 2-2 1 HP, Gilb 1-1 1 RBI; Rosetown: Truong 2-4, J Tschida 2-4 1 R 2B, Savard 2-2 1 RBI 2 R 1 IBB 2B, B Nelson 1-3 1 R 2B, A Nelson 1-2 1 RBI 1 BB.