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Nachreiner shuts down Cathedral

Staff photo by Jeremy Behnke New Ulm Cathedral’s Sam Knowles slides into second base safely as Springfield’s Brendan Buerkle takes the throw in Monday’s Tomahawk Conference baseball game at Johnson Park.

NEW ULM — Springfield righthander Jacob Nachreiner scattered three Cathedral hits and at one time set down 15 Cathedral batters in a row as the Tigers jumped Cathedral for second place in the Tomahawk Conference with a 3-1 win at Johnson Park.

Nachreiner fanned two as the Tigers improved to 9-4 in the conference and 11-4 overall.

Sam Knowles took the loss for Cathedral (10-3, 8-3). Knowles limited the Tigers to only four hits and fanned eight.

Knowles had the lone RBI for the Greyhounds.

Nachreiner had an RBI double for the Tigers with their other two runs coming on successful suicide squeeze bunts from Tori Helget and Isaac Lothert.

“Jacob threw a heck of a game for us and we battled,” Tigers’ coach Brandon Wilhelmi said. “This was the kind of a game that we needed.”

Cathedral coach Alan Woitas felt that both Nachreiner and Knowles had great games on the mound.

“They both pitched really well and we made a few mistakes early and they were able to capitalize on them,” he said. “If you look at the way the game ended, those were some pretty costly mistakes. But that is the way the game of baseball goes.”

The Greyhounds, who are at Martin Granada-Huntley-East Chain on Thursday, got to Nachreiner for the only time in the bottom of the first inning when Isaiah Rieser reached on an infield error. He stole second and went to third on a Noah Wilmes’ groundout. Knowles then helped his own cause with an RBI single to center.

The Tigers scored two runs in the top of the third inning when Ashtin Johnson reached on an infield error, swiped second and trotted home when Nachreiner aided his cause with an RBI double to center.

A Dylan Batzlaff groundout moved Nachreiner to third. The Tigers then used the first of their two successful squeeze bunts when Helget brought in Nachreiner.

Springfield used a second squeeze bunt to score a run in the next inning when Mason Leonard reached on an infield error and stole second.

A Kyle Quisenberry single moved Leonard to third. From there, Leonard raced home on a Lothert squeeze bunt.

Wilhelmi said that playing small ball can get you wins.

“I have been telling them that all year that we need to play small ball to manufacture some runs and tonight we did it,” he said.

Woitas said that the two squeeze bunts from the Tigers did not surprise him.

“We had a prety gprettydea that they were capable of doing that and they executed it well. That is the way you push runs across the plate.”

And Nachreiner made those runs hold up. Cathedral had a base runner reach base to start the second inning but after that, Nachreiner set down the next 15 straight batters before Brody Kirchstein led off the bottom of the seventh with a single to right. David Wilfahrt singled with two outs but Nachreiner got the final out for a big conference and section win for the Tigers.

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