The Becker Bulldog baseball team played two games this week — one on a blustery, hellish day and the other in pure paradise.

 

Thursday, the boys traveled to Zimmerman on a perfectly sunny, warm afternoon. Behind the pitching of Cody Gruenhagen the team captured their first win of the 2016 campaign.

 

Becker scored three runs in the top of the first when Andrew Stanger hit a solid single and stole second. He scored on a Gruenhagen single. Casey Vesledahl reached base on a Thunder error, moving Gruenhagen to third and with two outs, Austin Rasmussen delivered a double to left center field to score both runners.  

 

Zimmerman tallied two runs in the bottom half of the inning to make it 3-2, but  the Bulldogs responded by scoring twice in the third. Gruenhagen and Vesledahl led off with back-to-back doubles and a single by Matt Yoerg notched the two runs.  

 

The Thunder scored a lone run in their half of the inning on a solo homer by Taylor Snow to make it 5-3, then they tied the game in the fifth inning on one hit an two Becker errors.

 

The Bulldogs weren’t done and they answered Zimmerman’s output with two runs in the sixth when Stanger led off with a single and stole second base again.  Gruenhagen delivered once more when he doubled and then scored on a base hit by Yoerg.

 

The score didn’t stay at 7-5 very long as the Bulldogs broke the game open in the top of the seventh with four runs.

 

Zack Halvorson blasted a single and moved up to second on a hit by Connor Rolf. Clayton Gallus loaded the bases with a single of his own which brought Stanger to the plate. The Becker shortstop coaxed a walk from the pitcher to score Halvorson and Beau Pauly hit a sacrifice fly to score Rolf. Vesledahl delivered a hit to score both Gallus and Stanger, making the score 11-5. 

 

Zimmerman was able to tally one more run in the bottom of the inning, but that was all she wrote.

 

Gruenhagen went the distance, allowing two earned runs on four hits.  The Bulldogs — who are usually a solid defensive team — committed eight errors.  

 

On offense, the Dogs pounded out 13 hits and were led by Stanger, who was 2-for-3 with two stolen bases. Gruenhagen was 2-for-5 with a double and two RBI's, Vesledahl was also 2-for-5 with a double and three RBI's. Rasmussen went 2-for-5 with two runs batted in.

 

The Bulldogs opened the season at home Tuesday and lost by four to Sauk Rapids-Rice.  

 

Freshman Brady Posch went the distance for the Storm, allowing just three hits while   Stanger started on the mound for the Bulldogs and took the loss.  Kendal Hanson and Beau Pauly came on in relief and had strong pitching performances.

 

The Bulldogs are at home Monday at 4:30 p.m. against Princeton, Tuesday on the road at Albany (5 p.m.) and home for a 5 p.m. game against the defending state champs, St. Cloud Cathedral Crusaders.