Staff photo by Travis Rosenau The New Ulm Brewers’ Wade French crosses home plate after his solo home run in the sixth inning of a District 8B amateur baseball playoff game against Raymond on Sunday at Johnson Park.

NEW ULM — In the bottom of the sixth inning of a District 8B amateur baseball playoff game against the Raymond Rockets, Wade French led off the inning with a solo home run to left field to give the New Ulm Brewers a 2-0 lead.

In the top of the ninth inning, French relieved New Ulm starting pitcher Mitch Bockenstedt with the Brewers holding a slim 3-2 lead.

French walked the first batter, who would advance to second on a groundout, before he struck out the next two batters to preserve a 3-2 win over the Rockets.

Bockenstedt got the win for the Brewers after going eight strong innings. He allowed two runs on eight hits while striking out 10.

Esau Nelson took the loss for Raymond. He went six innings and allowed three runs on seven hits while fanning six.

Mike Jeseritz had three of Raymond’s eight hits. Eli Nelson drove in two of the Rockets’ runs.

French and Colton Schaefer each had two hits for New Ulm.

The Brewers now advance to this coming Saturday’s winners bracket game where they will meet Bird Island at 4 p.m. at Johnson Park.

Sunday’s win over Raymond also assures the Brewers one of three District 8B berths in this year’s Class B state tournament.

Bockenstedt and Nelson both held each other’s teams scoreless as the Class B seventh-ranked Brewers and the 10th-ranked Rockets struggled.

But in the third inning, the Brewers broke through on the right-handed Nelson, who will be a senior next year at Paynesville High School.

JT Hoffmann coaxed a leadoff walk off of Nelson before Cole Ranweiler followed with a single.

French then lined a single to plate Hoffmann.

French said seeing Nelson for a second time gave his team an idea of what he threw.

“We have a lineup where sometimes you need to see a guy once and then you see his pitches better,” he said. “He was struggling a little bit with his off-speed, so it allowed us to sit on the fastball a little bit and we took advantage of it.”

The Brewers and French again took advantage of a Nelson fastball in the sixth inning when he sent one over the fence in left to start the inning.

“He threw me a slider on the first pitch, so I figured he was not going to go back to that,” French said. “I was sitting fastball — he threw me one and I got lucky.”

Schaefer laced a two-out single before a walk to Sam Keckeisen and a Lucas Suess RBI single made it a 3-0 game.

But Raymond cut the lead to 3-2 in the bottom of the eighth.

French took the mound in the top of the ninth in a tough situation and not having thrown a lot of innings for the Brewers this season.

“I have probably thrown about 20 innings this season,” he said. “But at this point of my career, that is best. My arm felt good. Mitch went a strong eight and I felt pretty good closing it down. I got (Jeseritz) on a slider (to end the game).

“He is a good leadoff hitter for them, so I thought that if I could throw one good one and get away with it and it worked and now we are state tournament bound.”