Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm’s Ben Alfred races for home during a nonconference baseball game against Hutchinson Monday at New Ulm High School.

NEW ULM — In many cases, it was the difference of a couple of inches that separated New Ulm and Hutchinson in a nonconference baseball game on Monday.

The Tigers came away with a 5-4 win in the game, but the final two outs of the game — a well-hit line drive from New Ulm’s Ben Alfred that was snagged in the infield, then tossed over to first base just in time for the force out on Levi Hopp — were an example of how close the Eagles came to being the better team in the contest at times.

It was a bit of déjà vu for New Ulm also, which got caught in a double play last week against St. Peter in the final inning after a line drive from Zach Hubbard was caught and thrown to second.

“I was super proud of the boys, they stayed the course,” New Ulm head coach Mike Anderson said. “Baseball’s kind of a marathon, not a sprint, and I thought they weathered the storm a little bit, and you can’t always count on hitting gaps and being dialed in all the time. They weathered the storm and came back strong here at the end, and I was super proud of them. We were one swing away.

“We also had some bad luck. We hit some balls hard a guys, and early in the game we hit some — I don’t know if you want to say gifts, some gift plays, where hey, I found a baseball in my glove — but sometimes that’s how it goes.”

Dirk Haynes took the loss for New Ulm, striking out two while allowing five runs, four earned, on eight hits in five innings pitched. Mitchell Hopp pitched two innings, striking out one and allowing no hits.

At the plate for New Ulm, Alfred was 2 for 4 with an RBI and a run scored, while Candon Briggs was 2 for 3 with an RBI. Tanner Backer was 2 for 4 with a double and a run scored, while Hubbard was 2 for 4.

New Ulm struggled early on both offense and defense, allowing two runs in the first and another in the third while going scoreless through three.

“We started the game out pretty flat,” Anderson said. “We were kind of quiet and just going through the motions. I would say that was it. We had a couple of errors and gave up a couple of runs.”

It wasn’t until the fourth inning that New Ulm got on the board, with singles from Levi Hopp, Alfred and Briggs leading to Kaden Larson putting a ball into play that scored Levi Hopp, then a sacrifice fly from Carson Domeier to score Alfred to cut the lead to 3-2. But a hard-hit grounder from Hubbard ended up in the glove of the Hutchinson third baseman, who took the ball to the bag himself to end the inning.

Hutchinson continued to score in the fifth inning, capitalizing on two errors to score two runs and push the lead out to 5-2. New Ulm got those runs back in the bottom of the inning, with Backer doubling and Levi Hopp advancing him to third on a fielder’s choice before a singles rom Alfred and Briggs drove them both home.

Mitchell Hopp came in to pitch the final two innings for the Eagles, and he kept the game close with two consecutive 1-2-3 innings. However, the New Ulm offense stuttered once again in the sixth, not putting any runners in scoring position. Haynes reached on an error to start the seventh and took second on a wild pitch, but a grounder put into play by Levi Hopp ended with a tag on Haynes, who was called out sliding into third. The Tigers defense then executed the double play to end the game on Alfred’s line drive, holding on for the victory.

New Ulm (7-3) travels to play Belle Plaine on Tuesday.