Millers open baseball season with split
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The 17U Elk Mound Millers American Legion Baseball team split a pair of games last week, dropping a 7-1 decision to New Richmond and defeating Chippewa Falls 4-3 in eight innings.
New Richmond
The Millers dropped a 7-1 decision to New Richmond in their opening game of the season at New Richmond High School.
Mitch Medin started on the mound for the Millers. He struck out six and walked three over his five innings of work. Zach Hiitola finished up the final inning on the mound for the Millers.
Medin led the Millers at the plate with two hits, including a double, but they couldn’t muster enough consistent offense to breakthrough with a big inning to match New Richmond.
“Mitch deserved a better fate”, said Millers coach Don Stuckert. “He pitched well enough for us to win, but we had a few defensive lapses behind him and couldn’t get the key hit when we had runners in scoring position.
Chippewa Falls
The Millers traveled to Casper Park in Chippewa Falls and came away with a 4-3 victory in eight innings.
The game was scoreless until the third inning when the Millers put up three runs. Mitch Medin led off the inning with a double and Zach Hiitola was hit by a pitch. A Kade Anderson single to right scored Medin and moved Hiitola to third. Ashton Greenwell’s fielder’s choice would score Hiitola and send Anderson to second. Mason Yarrington followed with and RBI single to center field scoring Anderson. Chippewa would score two runs of their own in the bottom of the third to make it a 3-2 game. That score would remain until the bottom of the 7th.
Chippewa Falls rallied to tie the game in the 7th inning using a walk, stolen base and a single to score the tying run and force extra innings. The Millers didn’t take long to answer as they scored the game winning run in the top of the 8th when Anderson walked to lead off the inning and eventually scored on a Yarrington fielder’s choice. Yarrington would strike out two in the bottom half of the inning to seal the victory.
Greenwell started the game and pitched the first four innings, giving up two earned runs on three hits while walking four and striking out four. Yarrington picked up the win, giving up one earned run while allowing three hits, issuing two bases on balls and fanning six over the final four innings. Drew Buchner collected a double among his two hits at the plate.