Staff photo by Ari Selvey New Ulm's Sam Keckeisen delivers a pitch during the District 8 Amateur Baseball Championship against Bird Island Saturday at Johnson Park.

NEW ULM– The New Ulm Brewers spotted Bird Island a 4-0 lead in the top of the second inning before scoring seven unanswered runs to top the Bullfrogs 7-6 Saturday at Johnson Park in the District 8B title game.

Wade French got the win in relief of starter Sam Keckeisen, French went four innings and allowed one unearned runs on four hits. Mitch Bockenstedt got the two-inning save allowing a run before retiring the last six batters in a row.

Jordan Sagedahl took the loss for the Bullfrogs.

The win means that the Brewers are the number one seed in District 8 and will get a first-round bye in next week’s state Class B tournament.

Cole Ranweiler had four hits for the Brewers with French and Ayden Jensen each driving in two runs.

“That was a really nice win for us,” Brewers manager Al Flor said. “Especially going down 4-0 and then battling back — we knew that we could stay in the game. The first two innings we left four runners on base — we were missing that hit.”

Down 4-0, the Brewers tied the game in the bottom of the third when J.T. Hoffmann reached on an error and Ranweiler singled. They both scored on a French triple to left. Andrew Peters walked before French scored on a Jensen groundout with Peters later scoring on a Colton Schaefer single.

New Ulm then added three runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, keyed by three bunt singles from Ranweiler, Peters and Schaefer which were sandwiched around a hit batsman and a walk.

“Last game we did not bunt so well, but this game we did,” Flor said. “That is how we play the game.”

Shutdown pitching performances from French and Bockenstedt kept the Brewers in front the rest of the game with Bockenstedt recording the last three outs of the game on strikeouts.

“Sam [Keckeisen] pitched well and we knew Wade was here to play the game,” Flor said. “And we knew we had Mitch and if we needed to we were going to use Tate Becker.”

Flor said that the first round bye is nice in that they are automatically in the second weekend of the tournament.

“It gets us one step closer to a state championship — hopefully we succeed this year and get to that last game.”