Legion team outlasts Orchard in baseball shootout

RANDOLPH — The Randolph Cardinals American Legion Senior team got back on the winning track before Neligh sent a message only a few days later.

Randolph (2-5) held on for a 17-14 win over Orchard on June 14 before the Cardinals dropped a 23-3 decision against Neligh.

“Pitching-wise, we need to throw more strikes and have less walks in the game,” Randolph coach Eric Brown said. “Defensively, we have been pretty solid all year. Our game against Neligh was not good on the defensive side, but beyond that we have been good.

“Batting-wise, we need to battle more at the plate and cut down the strikeouts. Especially the strikeouts looking. Have confidence in what they are doing and don’t play afraid.”

In the win against Orchard, the Cardinals had a strong performance from Aiden Gubbels who went 2-for-4 at the plate with two doubles and two RBI. He aided the cause from the bump as well, as he pitched for the save.

Carter Korth went 3-for-4 with a double and two RBI, Joe Miller threw three innings to earn the victory while Gabe Wortman and Tristan Mosel also added three hits apiece in the victory.

Neligh made things much more difficult, but Randolph’s Collyn Beal went 2-for-3 and scored a run while Mosel went 1-for-3 and also scored a run.

Each Randolph batter recorded a double.

Tom Korth scored the other run for Randolph while Kolby Casey registered his first hit of the season.

“Ajay Gubbels and Tom Korth both got on the mound for the first time and had solid outings,” Brown said.

Tuesday, the Cardinals wrapped the home portion of their schedule against O’Neill and then headed to Stanton for a Friday contest.

“It’s our chance to learn from what we did wrong against these teams last time and compete for seven innings,” Brown said. “We have a much better team than our record shows and I hope they can prove that on the field the rest of the season.”