There were times when a once comfortable lead for Mahtomedi pitcher Tony Tierney was looking like it would be in jeopardy.
Even before the No. 7-ranked Zephyrs had a five-run lead against Chisago Lakes, Tierney was able to get himself out of big jams, executing on his pitches that forced some bad swings from the Wildcats.
"He just battled through and trusted his defense," Mahtomedi coach John Hargrove said. "There were some situations that he was in, but he did a great job with getting strikes across when he had to and was able to really limit those runs."
Tierney allowed three runs in five innings, but it was his resiliency in those tight spots that gave the Zephyrs a 7-3 win on Saturday at Mahtomedi High School.
"You just have to battle through it," Tierney said after the Zephyrs improved to 18-1. "I was able to get some pop ups and our defense made some great plays behind me."
Chisago Lake's Mark Sontag ripped a triple to center to lead off the second inning, but Tierney was able to escape unscathed.
Tierney got Gabe Gustafson to line out to shallow center, and Sontag was unable to tag on the play. Noah Taylor came up next and also hit a shallow fly ball to left that was not deep enough to advance Sontag. Sam Birkholz followed with a strikeout to end the second.
"You just have to believe in yourself that you can get them out and trust that your guys behind you will do their job, and they did," Tierney said. "Coach was calling some pitches there in some of those spots, and we were able to get some big outs."
The Zephyrs, tops in the Classic Suburban Conference with a 14-1 record, tagged the Chisago Lakes pitching staff early.
Taylor started but only got into the second inning, when he was pulled before recording and out. Colton Mueller finished the second and lasted into the third before Mitchell Berg took over and finished.
Mahtomedi scored in every inning that it batted except for the sixth. It had at least one base runner in every inning and, more importantly, answered when the Wildcats, co-leaders of the Mississippi 8 Red Division with a 5-1 record, were creeping back.
"That's all that we ask them to do," Hargrove said. "You have to do that and it shows that we are blessed with a lot of seniors that know what it takes to answer like that."
Chisago Lakes (11-3 overall) scored twice in the fourth, but Mahtomedi answered in the bottom half.
Richter singled to start the fifth, then Moses perfectly executed a hit-and-run, which put Richter to third.
A wild pitch by Berg brought Richter in.
"Whenever we had guys on base we seemed to have found a way to get them in, Tierney said. "Some big hits when we needed them."
Colin Baumgard came in for Mahtomedi to pitch the sixth and seventh innings. He was finished off Chisago Lakes, but not after the Wildcats made things interesting in the seventh by loading the bases. Baumgard induced a ground ball to shortstop to end the game.
"A nice team win for us and I really liked how we did a lot of things right," Hargrove said. "We were pretty balanced all the way through with some big hits, great pitching. A good, solid win."
