Rockets end Blossoms’ perfect start

Blooming Prairie baseball’s perfect 6-0 start came to an end last week after a 13-3 loss to a ready Randolph team.

A rainy day at the Rockets’ home field was not enough to stop Randolph’s bats from heating up, but it did spell disaster for a Blooming Prairie team whose offense has been its best weapon.

Making matters more difficult was the fact that Blooming Prairie Head Coach Matt Kittelson was not able to be on site for the game after having been ejected in the team’s prior game against NRHEG.

Usual starter Alex Lea took the mound for the Awesome Blossoms, but the Rockets appeared ready for him and jumped out to a lead early on.

The first few innings saw Randolph capitalize on multiple deep shots into the outfield that rolled to the fence for extra-base hits and turned into multiple runs.

Blooming Prairie answered early with three runs in the first few innings, but the team struggled to stack hits and stranded multiple base runners along the way.

The result was a 10-run loss that came by mercy rule in the sixth inning.

When Blooming Prairie hosted Spring Grove for a game just two days later, the team did not look like a side that had been beaten handily the game prior.

Instead, the Awesome Blossoms got right back to work playing their brand of baseball: fast and aggressive.

Spring Grove had no answers for Lea on the mound and could not stop an onslaught of hits and stolen bases as the Awesome Blossoms went on to win 10-1.

After being pulled from the mound against Randolph, Lea managed to pitch a complete game gem against Spring Grove to earn the win.

The Awesome Blossoms’ next game will be on the road against United South Central on Thursday, May 1 at 4:30 p.m.

The Rebels sit 6-3 overall at the conclusion of last week’s slate of games and sit one spot above Blooming Prairie (3-1 conference record) in the Gopher Conference standings at 3-0.