File photo by Travis Rosenau New Ulm Junior Legion Gold’s Kyle Albrecht connects with a pitch during a junior legion baseball game against Mankato East on July 19 at Johnson Park in New Ulm.

By Jim Bastian

Journal Sports Writer

NEW ULM –New Ulm Junior Legion head coach Mike Anderson described his team as one with resiliency and heart.

“This team is never out of anything,” he said as his team prepares for the Minnesota D-I Junior Legion State Tournament.

New Um enters the state tournament with a 24-6-1 mark and will meet Chanhassen Thursday at 3:30 at Red Haddox Field in Bloomington.

New Ulm defeated TCU, Mankato West, Hutchinson and Marshall to earn the state trip.

New Ulm played Chanhassen earlier in the season and lost a 7-3 extra-inning affair to them.

And of the six losses this season, two have come to Senior Legion teams.

“Our other losses have been to Creighton Prep, to Mankato East in the Upper Midwest Classic,” Anderson said.

And Anderson said ever since that loss to Mankato East, his team has elevated their game to a different level in all aspects.

“I have had better hitting teams, I have had better pitching teams, I have had better defensive teams, but I do not know if I have had better teams when you add all of the ingredients together,” he said. “I have not had many that are much better.”‘

Anderson said his team’s strength is its resiliency.

“At the beginning of the year, I questioned our compete at times, and right now I have zero questions in our compete,” he said. “If you watch us play, it does not matter the score or the inning — we play with a fire [under] our butts.”

He feels that there were two games this season that showed that residency and compete factor.

“One was the Alexandria Tournament,” Anderson said. “We were playing Becker — whois also in the state tournament — and they were a high-end team. We had Tanner [Backer] on the mound, and it was one of his best performances. He could swat a fly with his fastball. But we had a weird scenario where we had an error, a bunt and we are down 3-0. But we kept our composure, kept competing and we win 4-3.”

Backer has led New Ulm this season with a 6-2 mound mark with 48 strikeouts and a 2.39 ERA.

Anderson said his number two guys are Dirk Haynes (4-0; 2.40 ERA) and Caleb Forstner (4-0; 3.60 ERA).

“We have used Cohen Domeier (4-2,4.50 ERA) as our coming-out-of-the-bullpen specialist — he has been awesome. He has been the guy who has had to go and jump on any grenades late in the game. He has been awesome”

New Ulm carries a team ERA of 2.80.

The Junior Legion brings in a team batting average of .292, and they are led by Kyle Abrecht ,who is hitting a robust .400, Zach Hubbard (.372), Elliot Schabert (.364), Parker Neubauer (.297) and Ryan Rathmann (.291).

“In Neubauer’s last six games, he is hitting .562 and an on-base percentage of .682,” Anderson said.

Anderson said that his rematch with Chanhassen will be tough.

“They are full of good athletes and good arms. We need to play our best — I have felt that every game that we have to play better than the game before. I have told this team several times that we can be the best D-I Junior Legion team in the state if we play the game fundamentally sound and play with some fire. We need to throw strikes and play defense.”

Anderson said he will start Backer Thursday against Chanhassen.