Vikings slip by Bulldogs with a win on the road

BOYCEVILLE — After beating Boyceville 16-0 back in April, the Colfax baseball team may have taken the Bulldogs lightly when they traveled to Boyceville on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. That wasn’t a good thing to do as Colfax was forced to come from behind twice and eventually win on — of all things — a balk in the 5-4 decision.

The Vikings were held scoreless in the first three innings by Bulldog pitcher Jordan Kuhn and were behind 2-0 after Boyceville scored on a walk, a single, another walk, a sacrifice fly and a passed ball before pitcher Sawyer DeMoe whiffed a batter for the third out. It didn’t take long for Colfax to erase the deficit however as Ethin Kiekhafer doubled to start the fourth inning and trotted home on DeMoe’s home run. Jarrod Rudi and Jacob Steinke spanked back to back singles and Zach Meyer followed suit to bring Rudi in and the Vikings lead 3-2.

Boyceville answered in the bottom of the fifth, starting with a one out walk and a base hit, and with two outs scored a run on a Colfax error and a passed ball for a 4-3 lead. Another wake up call was in order as the Vikings came back with singles from Logan Mittelstadt and Steinke in the sixth with Mittelstadt scoring the tying run on an error by the Boyceville left fielder. A fly out and a strikeout ended a potential big inning with two Vikings left on the base paths.

After DeMoe got two outs on the Bulldogs in their half of the sixth, he gave up a pair of free passes, prompting coach Tim Wilson to insert Mittelstadt on the mound. A ground out ended the inning with the score still at 4-4. Boyceville replaced their pitcher in the top of the seventh, and Kiekhafer led off with a shot to right field which was misplayed and he ended up at second base. He then stole third and came home with the go ahead run on a balk from James Palmer, and the Vikings left runners stranded on first and third after a ground out ended the inning.

Mittelstadt gave up a leadoff single in the bottom of the seventh and the runner was bunted over to second base. But that was enough for Mittelstadt as he struck out the final two Bulldogs to preserve the win.

Rudi, Mittelstadt, Steinke and Meyer all had a pair of hits for Colfax with Meyer and DeMoe both collecting two RBI. The Vikings left nine runners on base but played a solid defense as Boyceville stranded 10 base runners. DeMoe pitched 5 and 2/3 innings, allowing just three hits but walked 10 with six strikeouts. Mittelstadt picked up the win on his 1 and 2/3 innings. The two teams will face each other in the opening round of the regionals in Colfax June 3.

Colfax             0 0 0 3 0 1  1 — 5
Boyceville   0 0 2 0 2 0 0 –4