The New Ulm Cathedral and Minnesota Valley Lutheran baseball teams play a big doubleheader today at 4:30 p.m. at Mueller Park in Tomahawk Conference play.

“These are big games on Thursday for us and also big games Friday (at Martin Luther/Granda-Huntley/East Chain) and Monday (host Cleveland),” Cathedral head coach Bob Weier said. “They are going to play into the Section (2A) seedings. All four of these games are important.”

The two games today are especially important for the Greyhounds in the immediate future for the Tomahawk Conference. Cathedral is 8-3 in the conference, second in the conference and trailing first-place Sleepy Eye who is 10-2. The Indians play a doubleheader today at third-place Springfield (7-3).

“Right now it is probably anybody’s conference,” Weier said. “It wil be interesting to see how the Sleepy Eye and Springfield games come out. It is kind of a very nice conference race right now. It is going to come down to the last day of the conference games.”

While the Greyhounds played their last game on Monday, a 20-3, five-inning win over Buffalo Lake/Hector-Stewart, the Chargers enter these two games having played a game Tuesday at Nicollet and yesterday at Wabasso and may be a little pitching-weary, Weier feels.

“It will be interesting to see how they handle that pitching staff because with the pitch count now, it is a three-day thing and if a pitcher throws below 75 in a game they can use them every other day,” Weier said. “But everybody’s pitching staff is being tested now. The first game (today) is the big one being a conference game and you want to keep up the intensity in the second game because it is important for the seedings.”

Chargers’ coach John Gunderson knows that going into today’s doubleheader after having already played games Tuesday and Wednesday, establishing a rotation for Cathedral was being thought of all week.

“We needed to make sure we have pitchers available for these games,” he said. “We have had to take pitchers out of games before we would like to have because we want to have them available.”

Gunderson said the balance for the pitching staff has been tricky.

“We were playing so many games in a row so we are giving them fewer pitches, but we are asking them to pitch in more games,” Gunderson said. “That is something that they may not be used to but at the same time it is something we have to do to have a well-balanced staff.”

Gunderson said that Jordan Fischer will start Game 1 with Jace Marotz in Game 2.

“We tend to play very well against Cathedral,” Gunderson said. “We only have four wins on the season, but I am looking for our guys to play very well today. We do need to play better defensively.”

EAGLES TOP QRF: Currently, the New Ulm Eagles’ baseball team is the top team in Section 2AAA according to the latest QRF rankings.

But New Ulm coach Kevin Briggs isn’t too focused on the rankings.

“We can’t control the QRF (ratings) and I do not understand the QRF, and technically our section does not vote by QRF,” Briggs said. “We cannot worry about that.”

New Ulm currently is the top 3A team in Minnesota at 12-1 going into a Big South Conference game today at St. Peter.

The Eagles are also the top scoring team in 3A at 9.5 runs per game and the top ranked defensive team, allowing only 2.7 runs per contest.

After Thursday’s game at St Peter, the Eagles play at Mankato East on Friday before traveling to Luverne on Saturday to meet the Cardinals for the overall Big South Conference title.

New Um follows that up with road games at Hutchinson on Monday and at Mankato West next Wednesday.

“I do not know if there is a game that we have to win but there is not a game that we cannot win,” Briggs said.