Staff photo by Steve Muscatello New Ulm Cathedral starting pitcher Mark Schommer winds up to deliver a pitch during the first game of a doubleheader against Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop Thursday at Johnson Park in New Ulm.

NEW ULM — In New Ulm Cathedral’s first game against Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop Thursday afternoon at Johnson Park, the Greyhounds tandem of Mark Schommer and Alex Hillesheim combined to hold the Thunderbirds to two hits in a 7-0 shutout.

In the nightcap, the duo of Sam Knowles and Aaron Portner bested that effort as they combined for a five-inning no-hitter as Cathedral scored seven runs in the top of the fifth inning for a 13-0 shutout.

In the first game, Alex Hillesheim and Ethan Mixdorf each had two hits. Josh Seidl and Aaron Portner each had two RBIs.

Schommer got the win, going five innings and allowing one hit while striking out 10, including five consecutive Thunderbird hitters.

Hillesheim finished up the last two innings and permitted one hit.

In Game 2, the freshman Knowles struck out four in his four innings of work that saw him throw 55 pitches. He only allowed one walk with the other GFW runner reaching on an infield error.

The game was stopped after five innings because of the 10-run rule.

Hillesheim, Chris Knowles and Josh Seidl each had two hits with Tony Geiger driving in four runs.

Sam Knowles added a two-run double to his game resume.

For Cathedral head coach Bob Weier, who saw his team improve to 7-3 overall and 6-2 in the Tomahawk Conference, the twin bill sweep was one where he feels he can see a change taking place in his team.

“Our pitchers are getting sharper with more work,” he said. “And one of the nicest thing about (the sweep) is we only had one error in 12 innings of ball. I was very pleased with our defense and our pitchers throwing strikes.”

That could not be said about the GFW pitchers as they issued five walks in the first game, with three of them scoring.

In the third inning, Ethan Mixdorf singled and eventually came around to score on a wild pitch. The Greyhounds added three runs in the fourth on just one hit but used three walks, a wild pitch and a Mixdorf double.

They then pushed across three more runs in the sixth on a Seidl double, a Portner single and a Tony Geiger sacrifice fly.

Game 2 saw the three GFW pitchers issue 14 walks in five innings.

The Greyhounds scored two runs in the first, second and fourth innings before plating seven runs in the top of the fifth.

Cooper Bruha took the loss in the second game for GFW (1-8, 0-7) as he was charged with four runs in 1 2/3 innings.

Weier said that he thought about leaving Knowles in to try and finish the no-hitter.

“My plans were to get Aaron (Portner) an inning or two and Will (Schabert) an inning or two but I did not expect us to score seven runs (in the fifth) so that killed those plans. He (Knowles) could have gone longer but we only have two games this week our other pitchers needed work too.”