EXTRA FRAMES, FOUR "W'S", PLAYOFFS LOOKING

July 11, 2005

A very busy week for the Express as they played four games in six days getting back to their winning ways as they posted four straight victories. Just like that they have put together quite a winning streak as they are winners in six of their last seven games. Just in time for playoff action.

St. Augusta

This past Sunday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Field in Kimball the Express blasted the St. Augusta Gussies in the CVL regular season finale by a score of 11-3.

Brooks Marquardt picks up the pitching win as he went six solid innings and Scott Marquardt and Aaron Knaus sparked the Kimball offense as they both homered.

The Gussies jumped out early 3-0 in the top of the first inning. The Express countered with three of their own in the bottom of the inning. In the second inning, Kimball took the lead for good and didn’t look back as Scott Marquardt blasted a three run ding dong to make it 6-3. Knaus took Gussie starter Zach Laudenbach deep in the third inning on a solo shot. The Express added four more runs in the fifth inning as they chased Laudenbach from the hill.

Brooks Marquardt along with Joe Krippner and Jim Brubaker held the Gussies in check the rest of the way to give the Express the victory.

New Germany

Saturday afternoon New Germany traveled to Kimball Veterans Memorial Field to take on the Express and after eleven innings the Express came away with the victory behind a big day from Kris Hagen as he picked up the pitching win and also knocked in the game winning run.

New Germany held a 5-3 advantage going into the bottom of the fifth inning when Mike Arnold decided enough was enough and tagged a 2-2 pitch deep over the leftfield wall for a three run jobber to give the Express the 6-5 lead. That however didn’t hold as New Germany tied it up in the top of the eighth inning on a double by Dave Donahue scoring Pete Kroells.

The score stayed tie until the bottom of the eleventh when Kris Hagen scored Joe Pennertz on an rbi single to give the Express the big “W”. Hagen also picked up the pitching win as he relieved Paul Hughes who was making his amateur baseball pitching debut. Hughes went five innings before being relieved by Hagen. Hughes gets the no decision, but received his first taste of pitching for the Express which is experience to build on. Hughes gave up five runs on nine hits over his five innings of work.

Hagen’s heroics ended a fabulous week for the right hander as he also pitched Tuesday evening against St. Nick picking up the win while striking out eleven Nick batters.  

Howard Lake

Friday night was more of the same as the Express traveled to Howard Lake to take on the Orphans. After sixteen innings the Express came away with a 9-6 win. Aaron Knaus’ rbi double in the top of the sixteenth inning drove in Scott Marquardt with the go ahead run. Mike Arnold’s single two batters later drove in two more to make it 9-6 Express.

Pat Arnold started on the mound for Kimball going eight innings and takes the no decision. He was relieved by Jim Brubaker to start the ninth inning and Joe Krippner came on in relief to start the thirteenth inning and he picks up the win.

Both teams traded runs in the twelfth & thirteenth innings to keep the fans sticking around. The game lasted four hours and fifteen minutes. 564 pitches were thrown between the two teams. The Express were led offensively by Joe Pennertz who went 3-5 with a double, Nate Turck 3-6, Aaron Knaus 2-7 game winning rbi double, Mike Arnold 3-7 with a double as well.

St. Nicholas

Tuesday July 5 the Express were the home team as they sparred with the St. Nicholas Nicks over in Watkins in a make up game that was suppose to be played over the Fourth of July weekend. The game was moved to Tuesday evening due to some holiday scheduling conflicts.

Kimball came away with a 7-0 victory as Kris Hagen and Joe Krippner combined on a two hit shutout. Hagen started and pitched brilliantly as he went seven very strong innings allowing two hits while striking out eleven. This was Hagen’s second win of the season. Joe Krippner came on in relief of Hagen to start the eighth inning and pitched two innings of no-hit ball to complete the shut out.

Offensively the Express were led by Brooks Marquardt and Joe Pennertz with both collecting two hits. Brooks scored three runs and stole three bases from the lead off spot sparking the offense. Pat Arnold recorded his second homerun of the year to give the Express the early 1-0 lead and Jim Brubaker chipped in with a rbi double in the sixth inning to polish off a three run rally making the score 7-0.

Rail Report

Due to the Fourth of July holiday an Express update was not submitted last week. The Express won two games out of three during that span with a win over the Cold Spring Rockies 4-3 in a continuation game and they avenged an early season loss by defeating the Eden Valley Hawks 3-2 in 11 innings. They lost the other game with the Rockies by a score of 9-0.

This week the Express travel to Hutchinson to battle the Huskies. This game will start at 7:30 and will be aired on KDUZ 1260 AM. Hutchinson will co-host this years amateur state tournament with Dassel. The Express look forward to playing on one of the prettier  ball parks in the state.

CVL Playoffs

The Express take the regular season CVL South Division title as they finish the year 11-3 in the league and now stand at 15-7 overall. Next Sunday they start double elimination CVL playoff action with a 2:00 game in Kimball against the Pearl Lake Lakers of Marty. The Lakers finish the year with the number four seed. Don’t let that fool you as they are playing good baseball as of late and have upset the number one seed before come playoff time. Two years ago it was the Express going down in round one to the Lakers.

In other CVL South playoff action the number two seed Cold Spring Rockies will host the number three seeded Luxemburg Brewers. All games will be played next Sunday at 2:00. In the CVL North Division, Watkins has the top seed and they will host the St. Nicholas Nicks. The other game features the number two seed Eden Valley Hawks and the number three seed St. Augusta Gussies.

It will be interesting to see how the CVL South shakes down as it is a very balanced division with Lux defeating the Cold Spring Rockies once this year and the Pearl Lake Lakers downing the Express during the back stretch of the regular season. It will be great baseball as this is the time of year every team plays for. All the other games throughout the season can be forgotten as a new season begins. If you haven’t been able to catch an Express game this summer now is the best time to get into the action. Hope to see you at the park!