Silver opened the tournament with a 5-2 win over Osseo at Mueller Park before ending the day with a 7-4 win over Alexandria Junior Legion Red.

Silver did commit a trio of errors in the second game of the day, but no runs in that game came off those errors and the offense more than made up for it with 12 hits.

“The kids just played great, they played great baseball,” Silver head coach Mark Grossmann said. “In 14 innings, we had, I’d really call three mistakes and at this level of baseball, that’s playing well. In the first game, we didn’t make any mistakes, we were ultra aggressive on the basepaths and we took every extra base they gave us, which won us that game. This [second] game, these guys didn’t give us any extra bases.”

After a pair of errors opened the bottom of the third inning and allowed Elijah Rieser and Joshua Forstner both to reach, Alexandria pitcher Connor Anderson responded with back-to-back strikeouts to bring Henry Forst to the plate for Silver with two outs.

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm VFW Silver’s Jeffrey Kral connects for one of his three hits in Friday evening’s Junior Upper Midwest Classic baseball game against Alexandria at Johnson Park in New Ulm.

With some first-pitch swinging, Forst sent a pitch to deep left-center to bring in both Rieser and Forstner and put Silver on the board.

“We were almost cooked when it was 0-0 and two guys, guys on second and third, and they just struck out two in a row, two of our guys in a row, didn’t touch the ball,” Grossmann said. “Then Henry Forst came up and first pitch just smoked that double and to me that was the game. That’s what won the game, that got the momentum going.”

Jeffrey Kral then picked up his second of three singles in a 3-for-3 day at the plate to move Forst to third before stealing second. Evan Blekestad then got a double of his own to left to bring in both Forst and Kral and put Silver up 4-0.

Alexandria got a run back in the fourth on a bases-loaded walk to Seth Schmidt, but Silver answered in the bottom of the inning on an RBI double to right-center by Forstner that scored Rieser, who doubled just moments before.

Mitchell Hopp singled in a run in the sixth, while Levi Hopp dropped down a squeeze bunt to bring in Silver’s final run of the game and put his team up 7-1.

Levi Hopp, who entered in the sixth in relief of starter Eli Anderson, allowed three Red runs in the seventh on five hits and a walk, but he forced a groundout to shortstop to end Red’s comeback bid.

“In that last inning, couple bleeders and then they got a hit, but we had a comfortable lead,” Grossmann said. “At that point, you just take a deep breath and get outs.”

Anderson ended up pitching 5 2/3 innings, allowing three hits and five walks for one earned run while striking out four. He allowed his first hit of the game in the fourth.

Forstner was 2 for 3 with an RBI and a run scored, while Rieser was 2 for 4 with three runs scored.

Anderson took the loss for Alexandria in four innings, allowing eight hits and one walk for five runs, one earned, while striking out three.

In Silver’s JUMC-opening win over Osseo, Levi Hopp got the win in 2 2/3 innings, allowing one hit for two runs while striking out two. Mitchell Hopp got five strikeouts in relief. Kral also had a perfect game at the plate against Osseo, going 2 for 2 with a double, while Forstner doubled an had two RBIs and Rieser had two RBIs.

Silver’s improvement in the field could be a sign of things to come for the squad as it heads into a 10 a.m. matchup with Sleepy Eye Junior Legion on Saturday at Mueller Park.

“Up until today, these are not exact but it’s close, we’ve given up 55 runs, like 38 of them were unearned,” Grossmann said. “So this was great. The three errors we made today, we came out of every one of those innings unscathed. Yeah, it was nice to not have a bunch of unearned runs.”