Aces crush Randolph in home opener
It hasn’t taken long for the Red Wing Aces’ bats to show up this season.
Fresh off the heels of a 11-7 victory over Bay City on Saturday, Red Wing had its home opener on Sunday and throttled visiting Randolph for a 10-0 Classic Cannon Valley League victory in eight innings.
“The offense was kind of our big question mark, so it see it start off so well is a good thing,” said Aces manager/first baseman Jimmy Bohmbach. “To see our offense looking good so far is a good sign. It’s also a good sign that we’re having good, patient at-bats.”
Red Wing’s offense started to roll in the second inning as Kyle Blahnik opened the frame with a single, eventually coming home on a single by Joel Newman. Newcomer Dylan Bjork reached home on a throwing error, and Newman plated another run on a sacrifice fly by JT Cunningham.
While his bat brought home a run in the second, Cunningham’s arm kept the visiting Railcats off-kilter. The lefty went five innings, striking out four while holding Randolph to four hits and no walks to get the victory.
“Really, the big thing for me today was spotting the fastball,” Cunningham said. “Mitch (Matter, the Aces’ catcher) called a good game and I was working quickly and keeping the defense involved.”
When Cunningham went to the bench, Red Wing went to its mammoth newcomer in 7-foot-1 Isaac Oeltjen. The imposing right-hander limited Randolph to two hits and one walk over three innings in his Aces debut.
“Isaac threw strikes, and we’ll take strikes over balls any time,” Bohmbach said. “He was solid in relief.”
Adam Thygesen had an RBI single as part of a two-run fourth inning for the Aces before the team went off for five runs over the final two innings. Steve Boldt, Bohmbach and Newman each had RBIs in the seventh while Matter hit a sacrifice fly in the eighth to put the 10-run rule into effect.
Josh Thygesen went 3-for-4 with two runs scored while Boldt and Blahnik each collected two hits in the Aces’ victory. Newman drove in two runs while going 1-for-4 at the plate.
“(On Saturday) we got production out of the bottom of our lineup consistently. And today, we were able to spread it out,” Bohmbach said. “If you do that, you can cause a lot of problems for other teams.”
Dan Pawlek was the Railcats’ top hitter with three of the team’s six hits, all coming off singles.
The Aces (2-0, 1-0 CCVL) play host to Elko on Friday, followed by a league game with the Cannon Falls Bears on Sunday.
By Joe Brown on May 10, 2015 at 11:42 p.m.
