Last year the Elrosa Saints erased the memory of a slow start by coming back time and again in playoffs and the Region 15C Tournament to finish their season in the State Tournament.

The approach of its "never over until its over" has manifested itself with the Saints again this year. The Saints used an eighth inning rally Sunday, May 8 to defeat Meire Grove 4-3 at Meire Grove. Friday, May 14 the Saints again staged a late inning comeback to defeat the then unbeaten Spring Hill Chargers.

The Saints trailed 3-1 going into the bottom of the ninth inning. Spring Hill's Shawn Schoenberg had been fairly efficient with his pitches, allowing only four hits and no walks in eight innings. He had hit two Elrosa batters, but backed by good defense, he had stranded six Elrosa runners. Pat Illies' run in the fifth inning was the only run the Saints had in the game in the first eight innings.

Spring Hill had scored in the second inning with consecutive singles by Dave Stalboerger, Jeff Schoenberg and [Jonathon Nietfeld] to take a 1-0 lead. In the fourth inning, Nathan Terres doubled and Aaron Welle singled, increasing the lead to 2-0. Shawn Schoenberg's RBI double in the fifth inning drove across Jamie Terres with the Charger's third run.

Other than that, Elrosa's Ethan Vogt had pretty much kept the Charger batters in check. Vogt left the game in the sixth inning and had walked none. He and others also knew that a couple of the run-producing hits, came close to being caught.

"With a few breaks the game could have been 1-1 going into the last inning," said Illies, who is also the Saints' manager.

Aaron Vogt came to the mound in the seventh inning, and faced only 10 batters in three scoreless innings of relief.

With two out it looked as if the Spring Hill lead would hold. The first two batters of the ninth inning were quickly retired on fly outs to center field before Jon Olmscheid was hit by the pitch and Aaron Vogt was walked to keep the Saints' hopes alive.

When Randy Duevel grounded to the infield the Saints hopes again start to sink, but when the ball was mishandled, the bases were loaded and the top of the Elrosa line-up came to the plate.

Matt Middendorf singled to drive in two runs, with Aaron Vogt just beating the throw to the plate.

With Elrosa runners on second and third, Spring Hill intentionally walked Mike Whittemore to load the bases, which brought Kevin Kuefler to the plate.

Kuefler had very little doubt what kind of pitch he was going to see.

"They had struck me out four times with a fast ball," he pointed out. "That's what I thought I would see."

He swung at and hit a fast ball, driving it through the infield and pushing Duevel across with the game winning run.

The win gave Elrosa sole possession of first place in the SCL-North and bragging rights in the battle of the keg, a symbolic trophy for the game between the Chargers and Elrosa.

(Melrose Beacon)