Staff photo by Ari Selvey Minnesota Valley Lutheran’s Jensen Gerdts (jumping with helmet on) celebrates with his teammates after a win against Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop at Mueller Park on Thursay in the opening round of the Section 2A Baseball Tournament.

NEW ULM — The Minnesota Valley Lutheran offense started and ended with Jensen Gerdts.

While his box score doesn’t pop off the page — a single with two RBIs and two walks — there is no doubt that Jensen was one of the most influential parts of No. 8 MVL’s 6-5 win over No. 9 Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop in the opening round of the Section 2A Baseball Tournament at Mueller Park on Thursday.

Not only did Jensen’s hit bring in the first run of the game for the Chargers to tie it at 1-all in the fourth inning, but he also drew a walk-off walk to end the game in the bottom of the seventh.

“I just knew that if we would have lost today, I would have blamed myself with that drop in the outfield,” Jensen said. “So I needed to give it everything I could. I just keep going, coach helps me a lot, and I got to thank my family for supporting me in anything I do. Just keep going.”

It was close to a dream scenario for a young batter when Jensen stepped up to the plate in the seventh.

Two outs, bases loaded, game tied 5-5.

And while a walk isn’t exactly the dream end for such an at-bat, it was no less effective in getting the win for his team.

“The dream is down by one so you can have the go-ahead run with two scores,” joked Jensen. “I was going to make him pitch to me. He didn’t throw many strikes all inning, so I was going up, he threw the first ball, and I was like, ‘OK, well I’ll watch the next one.’ That was a strike, then he threw two more balls. Second one could have been called a strike, I got lucky there. But after that, I was just going to make him throw it to me until I got a loaded count.

“Basically just making him pitch to me. I didn’t have to have any pressure on me, because it was all on him. We were tied, and if I were to have gotten out, we would have gotten extra innings, so I just cleared my head, took deep breaths, and just went.”

That strategy ended up working as Jensen took the fourth ball after the full count to bring home Kaden Peterson for the win.

While MVL saw GFW go up a run or two many times throughout the game, the Chargers always responded and were able to hang with the Thunderbirds before pulling out a win in the seventh.

“We had some success against them two games earlier,” MVL head coach Jim Buboltz said. “So the guys kind of always felt that something was going to happen here. We could get back into the game and have a big inning. They were able to piece it together at one time at the end here. Just super proud that they stayed in it all the way to the end and kept going.”

Buboltz said errors and other defensive mistakes were a big reason why GFW gained their leads in the game. The Chargers finished with two errors in the game and had several times where a play could have been made on shallow hits to the outfield, but the defense was unable to make the catch.

“They came with a lot of fire today, and they were real real pumped up for the game,” he said. “Our guys didn’t match that at times. It was a good ball game, but it wasn’t too cleanly played at times. We made a couple of mistakes that they made it hurt today. They hit the ball real well, put the ball in play. But our guys kept battling and I’m so proud of our guys for that. We’ve played better and lost. So to get through on not one of our better games, we’re just happy to keep playing.”

Zach Riederer got the win for the Chargers in 1 2/3 innings of relief, striking out two while allowing two hits and one earned run. Josh Vander Plas started the game, striking out six while allowing two earned runs on six hits and one walk in 6 1/3 innings.

At the plate for MVL, Peterson was 2 for 4 with two RBIs and a run scored, while Riederer was 2 for 3 with a run scored. Brennan Bendix was 1 for 2 with an RBI.

Layton Uecker-Hamre took the loss for GFW, surrendering three runs on three hits and a walk in one inning of pitching. Dominic Rose got the start, striking out six while allowing one earned run on six hits and four walks in six innings pitched. At the plate, Uecker-Hamre was 3 for 4 with two doubles and two RBIs, while Rose was 2 for 4 with two runs scored. Kaden Reike had a triple, an RBI and a run scored, while Luke Bastian had a double, an RBI and a run scored.

Both teams held strong defensively through the first three innings, with neither side reaching home. MVL did get three singles to start off the first, but Rose got a strikeout and caught a line-drive hit to him before tossing it to third for a double play to end the inning. Owen Swenson and Uecker-Hamre each hit doubles in the first and third innings, respectively, but couldn’t advance to third from there.

GFW drew first blood in the fourth, with Rose doubling and taking home on an errant throw to third by the catcher. MVL immediately responded in the bottom of the inning, with Gerdts singling to bring home Drew Witte.

GFW scored again on MVL miscues, with Bastian reaching on an error and then scoring on a double by Uecker-Hamre. MVL rallied back in the bottom of the inning with two scores of their own, with Riederer coming home on a single by Peterson and Bradyn Kube scoring on a groundout by Vander Plas.

GFW didn’t back down, though, and scored two runs in the top of the sixth on a triple by Reike and a double by Bastian. The Thunderbird defense held MVL to no runs in the bottom of the inning, then GFW turned around to tack on an extra run in the top of the seventh on a single by Uecker Hamre.

Down by two runs, MVL’s Connor Bode stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the seventh and hit a leadoff single. Riederer was hit by a pitch to put runners on first and second, but Uecker-Hamre got a strikeout to put the game one out closer to ending. Peterson responded with a single that brought home Bode to cut the lead to one, then Vanderp PWilfahrtlas reached on an error to load the bases. Bendix hit a blooper that landed between a cluster of GFW fielders in shallow right field to score a second run to tie up the game before Uecker-Hamre coaxed a pop out to get the second out.

With the stage set, Gerdts stepped into the batters box to draw his six-pitch walk and send the Thunderbirds home.

MVL (11-9) now will have to travel to take on top-seeded and third-ranked Springfield on Tuesday. Springfield won the previous two meetings with 11-9 and 8-1 wins in a doubleheader on April 18. The Chargers will have to face the pitcher that allowed only one run to them in their previous meeting, Jakob Nachreiner, but hope to bring the same juice that got them nine runs while limiting their defensive errors.

“We have to play cleaner defense,” Buboltz said. “And if we can do that — and we have at times — if we can play cleaner defense, we’re going to be in that game. We played them real tough earlier in the year and I know the guys want another opportunity to do that.”

Gerdts added that the team will need to continue to find ways to score against Nachreiner and the Springfield defense that has allowed an average of 2.15 runs given up and has nine shutouts on the season.

“As long as we keep squaring up the ball like we did today,” he said. “We just barreled everything up … As long as we can keep doing that — we struggled against [Nachreiner] last time. We’re a different team now, so if we keep going and keep pushing I think we got it in us.”