The Northfield High School baseball team extended its win streak to three games thanks to a pair of victories during the last week against Big 9 rivals Austin and Red Wing. The victories improved the Raiders’ record to 3-3 overall, 3-3 Big 9.
The lone setback last week was due to the weather, as Northfield saw its non-conference game against Tri-City United on Friday, April 19 postponed due to the weather. The game has been rescheduled at home May 10.
The Raiders managed to keep their win streak alive on Monday, April 22 thanks to a late rally that resulted in a 7-6 victory at home against Red Wing.
In a game that had the potential to be a pitchers’ dual due to a strong wind blowing in from centerfield, the Raiders managed to outhit the Wingers 9-5 in a contest that ended up with a total of 13 runs scored.
Northfield opened the game’s scoring with a run in the second inning before Red Wing ignited for six runs in the top of the third inning to take a 6-1 lead. The Raiders waited until the fifth inning before they staged a five-run rally that tied the game.
In that epic inning, Jake Geiger and Tegan Mellgren opened with singles and a walk to Austin Koep loaded the bases. Another walk to Seth Thompson scored a run before Aaron Reisetter hit into a fielder’s choice that scored two more runs thanks to a throwing error on the play.
The rally continued with a single by Ryan Cahoon before a wild pitch allowed runners to move to second and third. Consecutive walks by Red Wing to Caleb Grawe and Aidan Molesky drove in another run to make it 6-5. To cap the inning, Geiger put the ball into play that scored the sixth run for Northfield.
Northfield went on to gain the victory in the sixth inning as Mellgren scored the game winner on a sacrifice fly by Reisetter.
JT Graupmann started the game on the mound for Northfield and pitched 2.0 innings before Eli Mikkelson was brought in to complete the contest. His relief work was impressive as he pitched 5.0 innings and allowed no runs and two hits along with charting three strikeouts.
“There was a little frustration when we got down early but hopefully this is one of those games that you can look back on at the end of the season and say that this was a turning point. We responded and guys kept having good at bats during the entire game and we were just able to pull one out,” NHS head coach Josh Spitzack said.
“When the game started and we saw the wind, we thought it would be a low scoring game, so we were talking about small ball and moving guys around that way. We were doing that early too but we just had that one bad inning and they got the lead. I was hoping we could keep the same mentality and we managed to do that…we didn’t get caught up in trying to do anything else and we just kept having good at bats.”
Spitzack praised the work of his defense in the second part of the contest, in particular the work of relief pitcher Mickelson.
“Eli Mikkelson has already done a great job for us as a reliever this season,” Spitzack said. “We have a busy week ahead of us and we didn’t want to have to burn through a bunch of pitchers on Monday, so he really stepped up today and that was big.”
Northfield opened its week on Thursday, April 18 with a 5-2 win at home over Austin. The Raiders outhit the Packers in the contest 6-3 and managed to ice the win with two runs apiece in the third and fourth innings.
Mellgren was the pitcher of record for NHS in the game with 5.0 innings pitched, which included five strikeouts, three hits allowed an two runs allowed. Grant Hutton finished the game with two innings of relief work.
Northfield also took advantage of four errors in the game committed by Austin. Geiger led Northfield with two hits, one RBI and one run scored, while Mellgren had one hit, one run and one RBI. Thompson and Reisetter also had one hit and one RBI apiece in the game.
Northfield continued its 2024 schedule with a game at home against Rochester Mayo on Tuesday, April 23 and it will travel to Rochester Century on Friday, April 26.
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