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Burnsville wins South Suburban battle

By Amelia Rayno, Star Tribune, 05/12/11, 8:46PM CDT

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Blaze upend Eastview with 8-4 victory


Burnsville shortstop Matt Stemper of Eastview tagged Matt Galloway on a steal attempt in the first inning. Jerry Holt, Star Tribune

Apparently, there was no use in Burnsville baseball coach Mick Scholl trying to downplay the importance of the Blaze’s most recent game on a dark and drizzling Thursday at home against rival Eastview. The players knew the records — Burnsville and Eastview were tied atop the South Suburban standings — and they knew Eastview won an earlier meeting between the two teams.

“It was hard,” Scholl said with a slight grin. “Coming into this game, we tried to keep it low-key, but it’s easy for our kids to get excited about playing them because they have outstanding athletes.”

The Blaze turned the excitement into action, capitalizing on Eastview mistakes early and then taking control from the mound and at the plate throughout to even the score with an 8-4 victory.


Burnsville starting pitcher Quinn Johnson threw a pitch in the first inning. Jerry Holt, Star Tribune

Eastview’s Adam Moorse started the game, but had uncharacteristic control issues and quickly loaded the bases in the second inning on a hard-hit ball to center, a grounder and a hit batter. What followed was a soggy merry-go-round, with a runner scoring by a hit batter, then a wild pitch, then two coming home on walks.

From there, Burnsville ran with the momentum, ripping three consecutive solid hits to score two more.

“We were all up and ready to go,” said Justin Threlkeld, who got two hits in the six-run, 11-batter inning. “The rest of the team kept rolling with it.”

Eastview had a mini-rally the next inning, scoring two, and hung around, scoring another in the sixth and one in the seventh before Burnsville sophomore closer Tyler Hanson shut the Lightning down with three consecutive outs, including striking out cleanup hitter Evan DeCovich to end it.

“What I liked to see was that every time Burnsville scored, we responded,” Eastview coach Tom Strey said. “It’s tough to overcome big innings like that.”

Quinn Johnson went five innings and improved to 4-0 for the Blaze.

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