Baseball: Post 54 posts another shutout victory

Zach Garner threw an economical four-hit shutout Tuesday for Red Wing and Post 54 rolled to a 6-0 victory over New Prague in Red Wing.

Garner faced just two over the minimum and struck out three in seven innings. Garner did not allow a walk and benefited from his defense as well. Red Wing (5-1, 4-1) turned a double play in the fifth inning and catcher David Goggin picked off a runner at first base in the seventh.

“With Zach on the mound you know he’s not going to give up a lot of runs as long as we make the plays behind him,” Post 54 head coach Justin Plein said. “With Zach he’s going to get the corner calls because he’s around the plate the whole game. He doesn’t miss by much a lot.”

Garner also went 3-for-4 at the plate with an RBI and two runs. Goggin finished 1-for-3 with an RBI and Preston Blaney went 1-for-2 with an RBI, a triple and a run.

Post 54 had nine hits in the game, including two triples and two doubles.

“Early on we definitely had the bats going on, scoring all six runs in the first three innings,” Plein said.

After going up 1-0 in the first inning, Red Wing broke it open in the second with a four-run frame. Post 54 took advantage of two New Prague errors and a leadoff triple from Dayton Johnson. Andrew Sandstrom added an RBI double in the inning while Blaney hit a sacrifice fly to score a run and Mike Stegora added an RBI groundout.

Only two base runners got past first base for New Prague in the game.

Legion takes two from Faribault

Mike Stegora had a day at the plate for Red Wing Sunday in a pair of victories against Faribault.

Stegora went 1-for-2 with two RBI in a 7-0 victory in the first game of the doubleheader and followed that up by going 3-for-4 with five RBI, including a three-run homer in a 13-4 victory.

“Early on in the season he was struggling, couldn’t get going,” Plein said. “Finally he got a seeing-eye single in that first game against Faribault on Sunday and that kind of set him off.”

Trey Eckstrom struck out 10 in the first game and threw a four-hit shutout. Eckstrom did not allow a walk.

Joel Newman finished 2-for-4 with two runs and an RBI while Dayton Johnson went 2-for-3 with two runs and had a double and a triple. Carsten Meyer drove in two runs and Andrew Sandstrom went 2-for-4 with a run.

Post 54 held just a 1-0 lead heading into the top of the sixth when it jumped on Faribault with five runs. Red Wing added a run in the seventh and finished with eight hits.

Things got started early for both teams in the second game as Faribault took a 3-0 lead after the top of the first inning, playing as the visiting team. But Post 54 responded with four runs in the bottom half of the inning.

Faribault tied it in the second inning, but that’s all it got off Newman, who started the game. Newman went six innings, struck out seven and allowed four runs on five hits.

David Goggin went 3-for-4 with two runs while Newman finished 2-for-2 with a run and Zach Garner went 2-for-5 with a run.

Red Wing hosts River Falls Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Ath.

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