Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm Legion Gold’s Ben Alfred catches a throw to first base for the out during an Upper Midwest Classic baseball game against Byron Thursday at Johnson Park.

By Jim Bastian

sports@nujournal.con

NEW ULM — Colin Anderson scattered three hits through 6 1/3 innings and struck out eight as New Ulm Legion Gold opened the 2025 Upper Midwest Classic Tournament with a 9-3 win over Byron Thursday night at Johnson Park.

Elliot Schabert and Logan Mielke each had two hits for Gold, with Mielke and Parker Neubauer each driving in two runs.

Joe VanArx took the loss for Byron. He went 5 2/3 innings and was charged with all nine runs.

“It was a great pitching performance by Colin,” Gold head coach Curt Forbrook said. “He threw a lot of strikes and we feel pretty good when he is on the mound.”

Anderson and VanArx each threw a scoreless three innings before a 56-minute rain delay stopped the game.

While the rain delay did not seem to bother Anderson.

“All the way through the rain delay I kept on talking to him and he said he felt good,” Forbrook said.

The rain delay was not as good for VanArx as New Ulm scored four runs in the bottom of the fourth on just one hit and were aided by three free passes.

A Dirk Haynes groundout scored a run before a two-run single by Parker Neubauer made it 3-0 with Neubauer later scoring on an error.

Byron cut the lead to 4-1 in the top of the fifth before Gold got the run back in the bottom of the inning on a Mielke RBI single.

Gold then salted the game away with four runs in the bottom of the sixth. A Jake Finstad RBI triple, an error, a Neubauer double and another error made it 9-1 before Byron plated two runs in the top of the seventh.

Gold plays the West Fargo Vets Friday night at 7 p.m. Friday at Johnson Park.