Staff photo by Travis Rosenau New UIm Junior Legion Gold’s Jaxon Buegler throws to first for a double-play attempt after getting a sliding Carson Uecker of Sleepy Eye out at second during a junior legion baseball game on Tuesday night at Johnson Park in New Ulm.

NEW ULM — The New Ulm Junior Legion Gold plated five runs in the bottom of the second inning and went on to top Sleepy Eye Junior Legion 7-4 Tuesday night at Johnson Park.

Zach Hubbard got the win for Gold. He went five innings and allowed three runs on eight hits. Ryan Rathmann and Ayden Gostonczik each saw action.

Cole Eckstein took the loss for Sleepy Eye. He went two innings and was charged with six runs on seven hits.

Kayden Klein had three hits for Sleepy Eye.

Hubbard had three hits and drove in three runs for New Ulm.

For New Ulm and head coach Mike Anderson, it was once again one big inning that got Gold going.

“We scored some runs [in the second] with baserunning and bunting,” Anderson said. “And as the game progressed, I could have bunted more and probably would have scored more runs, but I wanted to let the guys hit a little bit. This group can bunt it well.”

Sleepy Eye coach Brandon Streich said that New Ulm’s second inning was big.

“We let things snowball a little bit in the second inning, but I was proud of the guys in the way that every time they scored, we responded and that is the sign of a good team,” Streich said. “They just had one more better inning than we did — give them credit. They are a good hitting team.”

New Ulm scored a run in the first on an Elliot Schabert single, with Sleepy Eye tying it in the top of the second on a Tyler Mathiowetz base hit.

Tanner Backer’s lead-off walk sparked the five-run inning. Singles from Jaxon Buegler and Caleb Forstner, and Carson Boe’s two-run single, made it 3-1. Kyle Albrecht’s squeeze bunt moved New Ulm to a 4-1 lead before a fielder’s choice and a Schabert sacrifice fly gave New Ulm a 6-1 lead.

The one big inning for New Ulm is becoming its DNA.

“It is a little bit,” Anderson said. “Being 13-3, there are a lot more things in our DNA. The biggest ones are if you take away our two games from this last weekend — and that puts us back to 14 games played — we would have played 14 games and had 14 errors. I think honestly our DNA is making plays in the field.”

Sleepy Eye cut the lead to 6-2 in the third on a Gavin Strong RBI single before New Ulm added a run in the fourth when Albrecht doubled. A Schabert single scored pinch runner Spencer Drill for a 7-2 lead.

A double steal by Sleepy Eye in the fifth and a Jack Windschitl double in the top of the seventh closed out the scoring.

Both Sleepy Eye and New Ulm came into the game arm-weary after the past weekend’s games.

“We went into the game a little thin on pitching,” Streich said. “But we stretched our depth a little to find some more arms as we get closer to another tournament in Sioux Falls next weekend and then playoffs after that.”

Anderson said that Hubbard, Ryan Rathmann and Ayden Gostonczik had not pitched a lot this season.

“They had not had a lot of innings this year, so we wanted to see what they could do,” Anderson said. “Zach kept us in the game — Ryan was having a hard time finding his arm slot — and I was really impressed with Ayden.”

New Ulm Junior Legion plays Sleepy Eye Legion Thursday in the first round of the Upper Midwest Classic at Johnson Park.