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St. Cloud State University
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Baseball team finally catches some breaks against the Johnnies
Huskies avoid losing third consecutive game to Division III rival
By Drew Herron
Published:
Thursday, May 1, 2003
The Huskies got the job done anyway they could, and St. John's dropped the ball, literally.
Baseball is a game of odds, percentages and numbers, and the baseball gods finally balanced things out a bit Tuesday afternoon at Dick Putz Field as the Huskies rolled over the Johnnies 11-5 to snap a seven-game losing skid.
Everything the Huskies had been lacking, and all the costly mistakes were set aside as the team put together one more solid effort to avoid the season sweep at the hands of the Johnnies.
Senior pitcher Nick Miller, making possibly his last start, went out in style tossing six stellar shutout innings before running out of gas in the seventh. The southpaw faced 27 batters, allowed six hits, two walks and three earned runs while striking out three to earn his second win of the year in six-and- a-third innings of work.
"I went out there for the seventh inning, I lost a few miles per hour on the fastball and just started to get tired," Miller said. "It was time to go and time for Paul (Buboltz) to come in and finish the job for me."
Buboltz relieved Miller, going the rest of the way allowing four hits without an earned run.
The victory was especially sweet for Miller after being rocked for five runs in the first inning of Saturday's first game against NDSU. Removed after the first inning in the loss, he resolved to get back on track and Tuesday he did just that.
"I had been throwing pretty well, but then I struggled again this weekend. I just wanted to get back on my feet," Miller said. "This is my senior year and this could be my last start. I just wanted to make it something I could look back at and remember as a positive thing. I got some nice defensive plays and the team was there to back me up today."
Six Husky batters had multiple hit games, but more importantly, it just seemed like it was the Huskies' day. Nothing could change that.
Of the five errors committed by the Johnnies defense, there were about five more plays that could have been ruled as such. Routine base hits were routinely bobbled and dropped, throws were errant and careless and like a predator pounces on the sick and the weak, the Huskies thrived on the chaos.
"That tends to happen a little bit. It's happened to our team when we've struggled defensively," Miller said. "When a couple guys are making errors you start thinking about it a little bit and you get back on your heels instead of being ready."
The errors were just one facet of the seemingly endless chapter of the sixth and seventh innings. A number of hits landed just a hair out of the reach of fielders as if the ball had eyes, further frustrating the Johnnie hurlers.
"Once you get a couple guys hitting and putting a couple hits together, the rest of the team starts hitting too. It's happened to us when other teams are hitting the ball, not necessarily hard, but in the right places," Miller said. "That's just what baseball is all about."
"When they started making errors, it put a lot more pressure on (the pitchers) and we started getting more hits," freshman catcher Travis Thompson said.
Thompson had a solid day at the plate collecting two hits and a walk while driving in two runs. He was one of two Huskies with a multiple RBI day, the other being sophomore second baseman Dave Dahl who drove in three runs on two hits.
"Just putting the ball in play makes a big difference," Thompson said. "When you put the ball in play good things usually happen."
The frequently shaky Husky defense was on point this day. As the Johnnies sloppy fielding gave the Huskies an inch, they took a mile, their fielders did not reciprocate.
"The big difference in this game was that we didn't make many errors. We made a lot of errors in the first two games against them and today they made errors and we didn't," Thompson said.
"Every team makes errors, but usually we'll make up some on our side to help them out too. But this game we didn't and that's why we won."
The Huskies had more than enough incentive to get up for Tuesday's game.
The series record between these two clubs holds a 67-46-1 advantage for SCSU, and despite this year's disappointing overall record, these players didn't want to be the first Husky team in a while to be swept by their D-III neighbors.
"Really the fact that we've lost two games to them already this year is motivation enough," Miller said.
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