Staff photo by Jeremy Behnke Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Josh Giefer throws the ball to first base during Monday’s game against Madelia at Mueller Park as Justin Ziemer (15) looks on.

NEW ULM — The Minnesota Valley Lutheran baseball team used nine walks by Madelia pitching and six hits from Chargers’ bats to open their 2022 season with a 13-3 win over the Blackhawks Monday afternoon at Mueller Park.

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

Josh Giefer, who was on a pitch count and ended with 65 in his first mound stint of the season, got the win for the Chargers. He went four innings, giving up two runs and scattering three hits. He struck out five and walked just one.

Left-hander Zach Riederer tossed one inning and gave up a run for MVL.

Dyan Grev took the loss for the Blackhawks, going three innings. He pitched well, allowing three runs on three hits while fanning eight.

Jake Lehman relieved Grev and was tagged for three runs. He did not get an out.

Kaiden Hammerschmidt paced the six-hit MVL attack with three hits, including a double and three RBIs. Garrett Parker added two hits.

“This was the first game of the season for both teams, so if you were analyzing it that way you may think that there were a lot of things that were not great,” Chargers coach Jim Buboltz said. “But I was happy to see us put the bat on the ball towards the end and work the at-bats.”

And it was that combination midway through the game that turned a close 3-2 MVL lead after 3 1/2 innings into a shortened game.

MVL scored seven runs in that fourth inning on just one hit — a Hammerschmidt single that made it a 6-2 game — but were aided by six walks in that inning and two passed balls for a 10-2 lead after four innings.

Suddenly a one-run game was blown open.

Buboltz said that his batters showed patience at the plate in that seven-run inning.

“They want to swing the bat so to hold the bat can be tough too,” he said.

After Madelia plated a run in the top of the fifth on a Jordan Koberoski sacrifice fly, the Chargers ended the game in the bottom of the inning with three more runs thanks in large part to two more walks followed by a Hammerschmidt two-run double and a Parker game-ending RBI single.

“Guys like Kaiden and Garrett with RBIs — these are the guys who are going to do it for us,” Buboltz said. “And you put Josh out on the mound right away because he is your leader and he is the guy we are going to have to rely on. So it was good. First games are tough to gauge because there is so much more you can still work on, plus we have to remember that we have not been outside that much.”

MVL is scheduled to host Wabasso 5 p.m. Tuesday at Mueller Park in their Tomahawk Conference opener.