Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm VFW Gold’s Zachary Helget touches home plate to score a run on a squeeze play during New Ulm’s playoff game against Hutchinson Saturday at Johnson Park in New Ulm. For more photos of this event go to cu.nujournal.com

NEW ULM — New Ulm VFW Gold starting pitcher Alex Hillesheim set the tone early on.

With his breaking ball working, Hillesheim fired strike after strike. Hillesheim’s first 13 pitches were strikes and he kept his defense off the field. VFW Gold advanced to Sunday’s play in the Northwest Subdistrict playoffs with a 10-0, five-inning win against Hutchinson at Johnson Park.

VFW Gold will now meet Sleepy Eye at 12 p.m. on Sunday at Johnson Park. Gold will have to beat Sleepy Eye twice to win the subdistrict. Both teams advance to the district tournament next week in Mankato.

“My curve ball was on, usually when it’s on, I have pretty good outings,” Hillesheim said.

Hillesheim went all five innings, allowing just one hit. He struck out five and walked two.

While Hillesheim was dealing, his team’s bats were also getting the job done. Gold finished the game with 12 hits.

“I felt pretty confident, usually when our team is hitting well, we can rely on the defense to back it up,” Hillesheim said.

Offensively for Gold, Jaden Domeier was 2 for 4 with a run scored and three RBIs. Hillesheim had two hits and an RBI along with a run scored and Josh Seidl, Hillesheim’s catcher, was 2 for 2 with two runs scored.

Seidl said that Hillesheim looked sharp.

“He did a really good job of locating and throwing strikes, that’s a big part,” Seidl said. “Just keep throwing strikes and keep them off balance.”

Teddy Giefer also had two hits for New Ulm and he scored twice with two RBIs.

New Ulm scored a single run in the second and third inning before breaking the game open in the fourth inning with three runs to go up 5-0.

New Ulm then put the game away in the top of the fifth, scoring five times, the highlight coming off Giefer’s double that scored two runs. Domeier added a two-run single later in the inning for New Ulm’s 10th run.

After starting the tournament with a loss on Thursday, New Ulm has advanced to Sunday’s play and still has a shot to win the subdistrict title.

“We took that to heart and we decided that it was time to get going,” Hillesheim said.