THREE OUT OF FOUR ISN'T TOO BAD

June 26, 2007

Four games in five days this past week was more than enough baseball action as the Kimball Express reeled off three victories winning against the Cold Spring Rockies to start things off Wednesday night and beating the St. Augusta Gussies in an ugly game on Sunday afternoon to cap off a wild week of baseball. 

Wednesday night in Cold Spring the Express avenged an earlier season loss to the Rockies as they jumped out to an early 6-0 lead after two inning of play and ended up winning the game by a final of 9-3 behind the hot bat of Adam Beyer and the big arm of Jim Brubaker. 

Beyer started things off in the first inning as he teed off on the first pitch blasting a three run homerun to get the Express on the board. The Express added three more in the second inning with Brooks Marquardt’s rbi double being the big hit. Six runs was more than enough for Brubaker as he threw six strong innings of scoreless ball striking out seven to pick up the win. Matt Dingman and Pat Arnold combined for the final three innings with Matt giving up a run and Arnold allowing two runs in the ninth.

Beyer finished the night 3-5 with a homerun a double and four rbi. Pat Arnold collected four hits going 4-5 with three rbi and a double. Brooks Marquardt collected two hits one being a double and knocked in a pair of rbi to aid the offensive effort as well.

Lonsdale

The Express traveled to Lonsdale Friday night and defeated the Aces 5-3. Adam Beyer started things again in the first inning as he smacked a two run homerun to put the Express on the board early. Lonsdale battled back to take the lead at 3-2 before Mike Arnold tied the game up with an rbi triple in the seventh inning and scored the winning run later in that same inning as scored on a throwing error. The Express added an insurance run in the ninth inning with Brooks Marquardt plating Ben Knaus with a single.

Brett Thompson started for the Express going seven innings picking up the win. The right hander struck out four and allowed three runs before giving way to Brooks Marquardt after facing one batter in the eighth inning. Brooks finished the game off to pick up the save.

Hibbing

The Express were at home Saturday afternoon hosting Hibbing and failed to hold a four run lead as Hibbing scored five unanswered runs to steal one away from the home team as they squeaked out a 7-6 11 inning victory over the Express.

Kimball was up 6-2 after seven innings of play. A big four run sixth inning maybe led to some complacency as that was the end of the road for the Express offense and Hibbing took over from there.

Recent graduate and newest member of the Kimball Express, Adam Magnuson made his amateur baseball debut on the mound and was pretty impressive going eight innings allowing five runs, striking out two and walking five. The impressive part was taking the ball for the first time and pitching into the ninth inning and leaving the game with the lead. Adam Beyer came on in relief of Magnuson and went the rest of the way taking the loss.

Hibbing scored the winning run in the top of the eleventh inning on a two out rbi single to centerfield.

Adam Beyer finished the day 3-5 with two doubles and an rbi. Aaron Knaus, Joe Krippner and Matt Dingman all collected two hits for the Express.

St. Augusta

Sunday the Express were in St. Augusta taking on the Gussies in CVL action to cap off the big week of play and they came away with an ugly 8-6 win after battling back from a 4-0 deficit.

The top of the eighth inning had the Express down 6-4 before they rallied for four runs. Brian Marquardt tied the game at six a piece with a two run home run to get things started. From there the Express pieced together two more runs on a couple of walks, a hit batsman, a base hit and a throwing error to give them the 8-6 lead.

Pat Arnold started for the Express and didn’t have much as he went only four complete innings and gave way to Brooks Marquardt in the bottom of the fifth inning. Arnold was tagged for six runs on they day struck out one, walked two and hit three batters.

Marquardt who came on in relief of Arnold, mowed down the Gussies allowing three hits over the final four innings to pick up the win.

Rail Report

The Express are now 15-5 overall and 9-2 in CVL play. After a busy week of baseball the Express slow things down with only two games this weekend with St. Martin coming to Kimball on Saturday with a 2:00 start and following that up with a game in Marty on Sunday against the Pearl Lake Lakers with a 2:00 first pitch scheduled.