Austin 18U baseball team falls to Rochester Mayo in Southern Minny League final 6-5 in 9 innnigs

The Austin 18U baseball team, the No. 1 seed in the Southern Minny League playoffs played host to No. 2 seed Rochester Mayo before a big crowd at Marcusen Park last Friday night, and in a game that proved to be as good as billed, Mayo pushed across a run in the top of 9th inning to eke out a 6-5 win.

Austin jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the 2nd when Zach Bollingberg belted a two-out RBI single and Tanner Murphy brought in two more runs with a single.  The lead was short-lived, however,  as Mayo parlayed five hits, a walk and an error into a 5-3 lead.  The score stayed at 5-3 until the bottom of the 7th when Jackson Oehlfke doubled to deep center to bring in a pair of runs and tie the game at 5-5 with no one out.  Jed Nelson almost drove in Oehlfke for a walk-off win with two out, but he was robbed of a hit by a diving catch in right field.

Austin had a great chance to pull out a victory in the bottom of the 8th when they loaded the bases with one out, but a strikeout and a pop-up ended the threat.  Mayo scored what proved to be the winning run in the top of the 9th on an RBI groundout off the bat of Jack Dunn.  Austin had runners at first and second with two out in the bottom half of the inning when Andrew Schumacher hit a grounder to third.  The grounder was bobbled for a split second, but then was fielded and Dawson Mills, who was on second base was called out in a race to the third base bag for being out of the baseline.

Zach Bollingberg wound up going 2 for 4 in the game at the plate for Austin with a RBI, a run scored and a walk, Anthony Ciola was 2 for 2 with two walks and a run scored, Tanner Murphy was 1-for-4 with two RBI’s and a run scored, Jackson Oehlfke wound up going 2 for 3 with his two RBI double in the 7th inning, Andrew Schumacher was 1 for 5 and Jed Nelson and Brady Kominek both scored runs for Austin.