Saxony Lutheran baseball team posts 8-3 district win against St. Vincent

The Saxony Lutheran baseball team put runners on base in every inning of its Class 2 District 3 opener against St. Vincent on Monday.

The Crusaders ended up stranding more of those runners on base than bringing them home to score but still managed plenty of offense in an 8-3 win on their home field.

Saxony Lutheran, the third seed, improved to 14-6 this season and advanced to face No. 2 seed Chaffee in the semifinal round at 4:30 p.m. today.

"I thought the offspeed stuff kept us off balance all day," Saxony Lutheran coach Paul Sander said, talking about St. Vincent starter Mark Kutz. "We never did figure out the offspeed stuff. He was a soft-tosser and he kept us off balance.

"He had a pretty nice little curveball, and we did not hit very many balls hard. We had several hits, but a couple of them were in the sun. We'll have to hit better than that tomorrow to beat Chaffee."

Jackson's Logan Bartels pitches during the fifth inning of a Class 4 District 1 game against North County on Monday, May 16, 2011, in Farmington. Jackson won 4-3. (Kristin Eberts)

The Crusaders stranded nine runners on base in the game.

"We couldn't center it and hit it very hard very often," Sander said. "We had multiple chances with people on second and third or bases loaded, and we did get a couple sacrifice flies out of that, but we didn't get the big, killer hit. We didn't get the hit that put them away."

After falling behind in the top of the first inning, Saxony Lutheran took a 2-1 lead in the bottom half of the inning when Ryan Sprandel's fly ball to right field was misread by the St. Vincent fielder, who had to deal with the hard and unrelenting wind blowing in all day.

"It's always windy up here," Saxony Lutheran starter Matt Stueve said. "It's either blowing straight in or straight out."

Similar plays occurred the next two times the Crusaders scored. Shawn Hadler doubled and later scored in the second inning after his ball was lost in the wind. Sprandel picked up three RBIs in his team's four-run fourth inning on another fly ball to right field.

"At this point in the year, you're always happy to win and advance," Sander said. "I thought Matt [Stueve] was good. I thought he had good command of his pitches. He only walked one batter and hit one, and so that's good. Any time you can only walk one and hit one, that's a good day. Overall, he made them put the ball in play."

Stueve pitched the complete game for Saxony Lutheran. He struck out three and allowed one earned run.

Stueve committed the Crusaders' only error in the fifth inning, which led to two St. Vincent runs.

"He's been on us a lot about that," Stueve said, referring to Sander. "He's just been saying we've got to play better defense.

"We made a couple errors the last couple games, and he told us to get out there and stop," Stueve said with a laugh.

Chaffee, Saxony Lutheran's semifinal opponent, already has defeated the Crusaders twice this season, most recently 9-3 on May 5.

"We've played them twice down there, and they've kind of handed it to us both times," Sander said. "We're certainly not intimidated by them, but we respect them. We have a lot of respect for Chaffee and their coach, but we're certainly not scared."

St. Vincent 100 020 0 -- 3 6 4

Saxony 210 410 x -- 8 10 1

WP -- Matt Stueve, 7-2. LP -- Mark Kutz. 3B Ryan Sprandel (SL). 2B -- Sprandel (SL), Shawn Hadler (SL). Multiple hits -- St Vincent: Zach Rollet 2-3; Saxony Lutheran: Sprandel 3-4, Hadler 2-3. Records -- Saxony Lutheran 14-6.