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Faribault knocks out Gibbon

Staff photo by Jeremy Behnke Gibbon left fielder Bryan Davis fires a throw into the infield in Saturday’s 9-1 loss to Faribault in Green Isle.

GREEN ISLE — Making their first state tournament trip since 1964, it was understandable that the Gibbon Reds looked a little tense at times on Saturday.

The Reds saw their season come to an end with a 9-1 loss to Faribault on Saturday in the opening round of the Class C State Amateur Baseball tournament at Irish Field. They committed three errors in the game and had only four hits.

Faribault starting pitcher Matt Lane did his job on the mound. He allowed just four hits and was perfect through 4 1/3 innings. He gave up a single run in the seventh inning when pinch runner Evan Davis scored on a double play.

Lane went eight innings and walked one batter. He struck out four.

“He threw strikes and that was the big thing for him,” Gibbon player/manager Ryan Panning said. “He wasn’t as overpowering as what I think a lot of people were expecting, but he didn’t get behind hitters, he was always in control and it seems like we didn’t hit the ball as hard as what we’ve been accustomed to. We hit a lot of balls off the ends and stuff and that’s because of the great pitching, what do you do?”

Winthrop starter Jon DeRock went four innings, allowed six runs (four earned) on six hits. He struck out three, walked two and hit three batters.

“I think you could tell we were uptight to start and that’s the situation that kind of comes with it,” Panning said. “That kind of killed us and our starting pitcher hit three guys and I think they all scored, you gotta find a way to overcome. They had a lot of two-out hits.”

The Lakers put the pressure on right away. After Lane retired the side in the top of the first, the Lakers scored two runs in the bottom of the first. Jake Langerud singled and scored on Lane’s groundout at second. Christian VonRuden scored on a throwing error by Gibbon catcher Cody Nachreiner to put the Lakers ahead 2-0.

After stranding a runner on second in the second inning, the Lakers scored another run in the bottom of the third on Jack Helgeson’s single. Langerud scored the Lakers’ fourth run of the game in the bottom of the fourth when he scored from second on a single by Grote.

DeRock’s stint on the mound ended in the fifth inning after he gave up back-to-back singles with nobody out. Hanska draftee Dayton Larson came in and after a sacrifice bunt moved the runners up, Larson allowed a two-run single to Dylan Valentyn to give the Lakers a 6-0 lead. Valentyn later scored Faribault’s seventh run.

The Reds broke up the perfect game and no-hit bid in the fifth inning, but were unable to score with two runners on base in the fifth. They loaded the bases in the sixth inning with one out, but once again they were denied by Lane, who came up with a strikeout anda popout to end the threat.

The Reds got on the board in the seventh after Kyle Mauer walked and Davis came in to pinch run for him. They loaded the bases with nobody out, but Lane got Tony Stadherr to ground into a double play, allowing Davis to score from third.

Lane put an exclamation point on the win with a two-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning that made it 9-1.

After the game, there were plenty of handshakes in the Reds dugout. For a team that few expected to get this far, it was a season filled with memories.

“It’s been a fun ride, I said it the other day, no matter if you win or lose, it’s always fun to get here and a lot of people have never been here,” Panning said. “It sucks to go out on a losing note, but we could’ve been done a lot sooner.”

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