By Bill Morgan, Staff Writer
The Becker and Clear Lake area baseball teams got in a few games this week prior to the Fourth of July holiday.
Becker Bandits/Clear Lake Lakers
Mike Smith went 6-1/3 innings with five strikeouts to earn the win and lead Clear Lake over Becker, 3-1, in Sauk Valley League action in Becker Saturday.
Tommy Friesen had three hits for the Lakers while Richard Thompson and Tyler Carper added one RBI each.
Kreeden Bloomquist led the Bandits with three hits while Ryan Hess had their lone RBI.
Jon Crowley went all nine innings for Becker in the loss giving up three runs while striking out three.
Becker Legion
In Legion baseball, Cold Spring beat Becker 7-1 Monday.
No other information was made available to the Citizen-Tribune by press time.
Becker Buzzards
The Buzzards traveled to Clarissa last Friday night for their first league game of 2018.
Clarissa used three base hits to plate the game's first run in the bottom of the first. They added another run in the bottom of the third to take a 2-0 lead.
The Buzzard bats were stymied for the first three innings, but in the top of the fourth, Josh May used his blazing speed to beat out an infield grounder and eventually came in to score on a Brian Kolbinger fielder's choice to cut the Cubs lead in half.
The Buzzard added to the score in the fifth as newcomer Nick Allerson singled to lead off the inning. Dino Diaz and Deron Trovall followed with one-out singles to tie the score at two.
In the top of the sixth, Doug May and Kolbinger each singled to start the inning, then after a sacrifice bunt from Jason Baune, May scored on a ground ball from Allerson and Tanner Bakke laced a single to score Kolbinger to make the score 4-2.
Becker would tack on two insurance runs in the top of the seventh as Trovall and Steve Newman each scored on bases loaded walks from Kolbinger and Baune.
Bakke picked up the victory going all seven innings. He allowed two runs on seven hits, zero walks and struck out five.
Up Next
The Buzzards return home Sunday afternoon as they take on the Alexandria Classic Clippers at the Becker Athletic Complex at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.
