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New Bremen's Rogan Muether (4) slides into second base as St. Marys' AJ Dieringer waits for the throw.
NEW BREMEN - With both teams' pitchers coming up with solid games, Monday's St. Marys-New Bremen baseball game came down to who could come up with a big hit.
Turned out, it was Nolan Kuenning with a two-out single in the bottom of the fifth that brought home Gavin Quellhorst for the go-ahead run as the host Cardinals improved to 3-0 with the 2-1 win over the Roughriders.
For four innings, St. Marys' Jacob Kaiser and New Bremen's James Nelson pitched solid baseball. St. Marys got the first run of the game in the top of the fourth when Jace Turner singled home Jack Boos with two outs. The Cardinals answered right back in the bottom of the inning as Johnny Heitkamp scored when Carson Keller bunted between first base and the mound to bring him home.
St. Marys sophomore Jacob Kaiser pitches at New Bremen on Monday.
"Jacob Kaiser pitched a very good game for us. He's a sophomore in his first outing for us," said St. Marys coach Adam Graves. "Joel Kogge came in and pitched well. Pitching and defense is keeping up in games. Unfortunately, we have to figure it out offensively."
"James, as a freshman, did exactly what we asked him to do," said New Bremen coach Chad Wells. "We asked him to throw strikes and he went out and executed. We made plays behind him. Ben (Sailer) made some nice plays at third base. Aaron (Thieman) made nice plays at shortstop."
James Nelson pitched six innings of three-hit baseball to lead New Bremen past St. Marys 2-1.
Nelson got the Cardinals out of a jam in the top of the fifth with St. Marys (1-2) stranding runners at second and third. In the bottom of the fifth, Maddox Wells led off with a walk for New Bremen before Quellhorst was hit by a pitch, and Graves called for lefty Joel Kogge to come out of the bullpen to try and get out of trouble.
Aaron Thieman lofted a deep enough fly to center to allow the runners to move up 90 feet. Ben Sailer hit a ground ball to short, but the throw home was in time to beat Wells and give St. Marys the second out. Then Kuenning stepped into the box and took a 2-1 offering to right field, allowing Quellhorst to come home with the go-ahead run.
"We got a little bit of timely hitting," said coach Wells. "That's what happens this time of year."
Kuenning moved from first to the mound to relieve Nelson, who struck out five and walked two in pitching three-hit ball. Kuenning got AJ Dieringer to ground out to shortstop, enticed Alex Yahl to hit a liner back to the mound and then got Brayden Sullivan to pop out to second to end the game.
"That's been our problem all season. We've given ourselves opportunities offensively, but can't get a ball into play," Graves said. "That hurt us against Parkway in that loss. That was an issue against LCC and it was an issue today. We had to be pushing double digits with runners left on base (eight total)."
Both teams are back in action today. New Bremen is set to host Anna while St. Marys travels to Bath to open its Western Buckeye League schedule.
