Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm’s Kyle Albrecht (right) tags out Mankato East’s Carson Hart (left) as he slides into home during a nonconference baseball game on Friday at Johnson Park.

NEW ULM — The New Ulm Eagles adjusted too slow to Mankato East pitcher Caeden Willaert in a nonconference baseball game on Friday, scoring two late runs but falling 4-2 to the Cougars at Johnson Park.

“It was a combination of things,” New Ulm head coach Mike Anderson said. “He had a good changeup low in the zone, he could throw a breaker for a first strike, just pounded the knees. We haven’t seen pitching with velocity like that very much this year, and first time through the order, he was pretty tough.

“Then as the game went on, I was super proud of our boys, we kept getting better at-bats, better at-bats, better at-bats. We made a game of it.”

Mitchell Hopp took the loss for New Ulm, striking out four while allowing four runs on six hits and six walks in five innings. At the plate for the Eagles, Zach Hubbard was 2 for 4, while Ben Alfred was 1 for 1 with two RBIs. Tanner Backer had a hit and a run scored.

East collected three hits to start off the game to score two runs, but Hopp struck out the next two batters to stop the bleeding. East got one more run in the second on two walks, an error and a hit batsman to take a 3-0 lead.

New Ulm kept East off the scoreboard in the third, but were unable to get any offensive production of their own, staying scoreless. In the fourth, East took advantage of another New Ulm error, two walks and a hit to score its fourth run while orchestrating a 1-2-3 inning defensively in the fifth inning.

New Ulm finally got ahold of some pitches in the sixth inning, with Dirk Haynes drawing a walk and Backer getting a hit before a single from Alfred drove in both runs. Ryan Rathmann added another hit to help advance Alfred to third, but a fly out ended the inning, halting the two-out rally.

New Ulm got another hit from Hubbard in the seventh, but a groundout and a strikeout kept him from scoring and ended the game.

New Ulm (13-6) awaits seeding for the Section 2AAA Baseball Tournament to play its next game.

“I think that we just have to play with the same energy and enthusiasm that we did today,” Anderson said. “We’ve got a chance. This is the top-ranked team in the state, and they truly are the best in the state. We were swinging away several times, and if we can keep our errors down and keep the ball low, we’re going to have a chance.”