Skeeters hold on to defeat River Falls

• Hager City's Cory Brathall

First baseman Cory Brathall keeps focus on home plate while River Falls' Joe Paatalo leads off.

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HAGER CITY – Young teams make mistakes. Young team are inconsistent.

And yet when they learn from those mistakes young teams can win, especially if they have talent like Hager City.

The Skeeters have the youngest line-up in the St. Croix Valley League. Yet they were able to eke out an 8-7 win over River Falls in the league’s 4th of July game Saturday at the Brown Sports Facility.

The win bookended an up and down week for HC. Along with their win over the Fighting Fish, the Skeeters also beat Red Wing 2-1 Tuesday but were crushed 21-2 in seven innings at Osceola Wednesday.

“We’re learning how to play at this level,” Hager City manager and catcher Mike Maves said. “We just keep getting better.”

Elliot Foley helped to put HC in front 4-1 after four innings. He drove an RBI in the third and drove in two more runs in the bottom of the fourth. Foley also put the Skeeters in front with his pitching through five innings.

Lance Murphy scored on a double steal to put Hager City up by three runs.

River Falls tied the game in the sixth thanks to RBI singles by Josh Eidem and Brian Giebel.

But Hager City responded with back-to-back RBIs from

Ross Sweig and Murphy in the Skeeters’ half of the inning along with two more runs that made the score 8-4.

The Fish came back again with another run by Siebel along with a pair of runs walked in to make the score 8-7

Elliot Jensen then came to the mound in the ninth to get the win. He struck out Giebel on a controversial strike call, one of several that went against the Fish which their players show their vehement displeasure at throughout the contest.

Brady Brenner was the winning pitcher. Foley led the team with three RBIs while Murphy scored three times and Henry Jager scored twice.

Tags: sports, scvl, hager, city