Three wins break Owatonna VFW’s slump

Owatonna VFW baseball broke its five-game losing streak last week by heating up for a 3-1 mark to finish out a weekend tournament in New Ulm.

The squad began its tournament with a 14-1 loss to Hutchingson that extended the mark to its pinnacle at five games, but quickly turned its day around by beating Hastings 7-3 on Friday.

VFW was the first team on the board with a run in the first inning and maintained a lead through five innings at 2-1.

In the top of the sixth, VFW turned up the heat with three runs courtesy of some hot bats.

Owatonna got a runner on via a single and moved him to second by a walk with one out, bringing Will Frantesl to the plate with an opportunity to improve the lead.

A wild pitch advanced both runners to second and third, and one pitch later Frantesl brought the run home by grounding into a fielder’s choice.

Owatonna didn’t slow down with two outs and a runner on third.

Another walk gave the team players on first and third, and resulted in a run soon after when the Hastings catcher attempted to throw out Owatonna’s stealing baserunner.

Instead of getting the third out, an errant throw allowed VFW to score from third base and also moved the runner stealing second all the way to third.

Layton Schnorenberg made Hastings pay for another mistake by reaching on error and scoring the runner from third on a ground ball to the infield.

Owatonna led 5-2 heading into the seventh inning ultimately won 7-3 after each team scored twice in the final frame.

The offensive explosion continued into Saturday when VFW beat Mankato National Legion 9-7.

Both teams left their defense in pregame warm-ups with 16 combined runs and eight total errors in a slugfest that saw runs in 11 of 14 half-innings.

Owatonna and Mankato traded one-run leads in the first two innings before finding themselves tied at 5-5 heading into the fourth.

While Mankato’s bats cooled off, Owatonna kept its foot on the gas by scoring runs in the fourth and fifth frames.

Owatonna earned the go-ahead run by recording three consecutive walks in the fourth inning before Aedan Tackmann was hit by a pitch to score the runner from third.

In the fifth, Joe Klecker helped score a run by singling to center where an error resulted in the Owatonna runner scoring from second.

Mankato fought back by blanking Owatonna and scoring once in the bottom of the sixth inning, but VFW closed out the game by scoring twice in the seventh and holding the opposition to just one run.

The same day, Owatonna faced Hamel and won 7-2 in another decisive game.

VFW left no doubt by scoring three runs in the first and adding another three in the third to go up 6-0 early.

Owatonna went on to no-hit their Hamel foes thanks to a quality start from pitcher Jaxson Gautier and a routine save by Calvin Meiners.

Tackmann was Owatonna’s best bat against Hamel and recorded two hits, one run and three RBIs.

VFW closed out its tournament with an 11-1 loss to New Ulm’s 17-and-under team.

Owatonna went up 1-0 after the first inning, but quickly were outmatched with New Ulm leading 11-1 through four innings.