Spartans Come Up Short Against Crush in Extras

COLD SPRING — The ROCORI Spartans opened up a new week in the regular season with a Central Lakes Conference battle against the St. Cloud Crush on April 21 at the Cold Spring Baseball Park.

The two conference opponents went back and forth the entire game, with extra innings needed to decide a winner. In the end, St. Cloud's three runs in the top of the eighth inning was enough to put the game out of reach — despite a late comeback attempt by ROCORI — resulting in the Spartans coming up short 10-9 in eight innings.

ROCORI scored the game's first run in the top of the first inning, also scoring two runs in each the fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth innings. St. Cloud tallied four runs in the fourth inning, adding three more in the sixth and three in the eighth.

The Spartans nearly came back twice in the game, plating two runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to tie the game up at 7-7 to force extra innings. ROCORI wasn't able to replicate that in the eighth frame after St. Cloud grabbed a three-run lead, coming up one run shy of tying the game once again.

Cal Heying led the way for ROCORI at the plate, finishing 2-for-5 with two RBI and one run scored. Cooper Notch and Zander Folkerts and Max Fredin each added one hit, one RBI and two runs scored, Cooper Notch tallied one hit and two runs scored and both Charlie Upgren and Blake Kelly drove in a run.

Nolan VanLoy tossed the first five innings for the Spartans, giving up five runs and striking out six. Grady Richards pitched two innings in relief, giving up two hits, no earned runs and no walks. Reece Kalla added 2/3 of an inning in relief, with Kelly concluding the game for the final 1/3 of an inning.

With the loss, ROCORI drops to 2-2 overall on the season and now sits at 0-2 in Central Lakes Conference action. Next up for the Spartans is a conference battle against Brainerd on April 23 in Brainerd.