The Upsala Blue traveled to Crosby to take on the Cuyuna Range Miners last Sunday and the Miners came away with a 3-2 victory. Cuyuna Range struck quickly with a couple unearned runs in the bottom of the 1st off of Jays starter John Fuchs. Fuchs would settle in after the 1st retiring 18 of 19 batters faced from the second inning to the 7th. The Jays tied the game in the 5th with a couple runs. Dustin Biniek drove in Ben Burggraff, who led off the inning with a single, with a hit to left. After a Scott Biniek infield single loaded the bases, Justin Lampert hit a sac fly to score Eric Lampert from 3rd to tie the score. The score would stay that way until the 8th. Joe Bartkowicz led off the top half with a triple. Following a walk to Matt Swanson, Adam Gerards hit a fly ball to right field. Bartkowicz was thrown out at home trying to tag for the second out. Miners pitcher, AJ Hartshorn, retired the next batter to keep the game tied. The Miners got a leadoff double to lead of the bottom half of the 8th from Beau Janonsek. Janonsek would come home with the eventual winning run on a 2 out base hit from Mac Jones. The Jays threatened in the 9th. But, after a one out double from Eric Lampert, Hartshorn retired the next 2 batters to end the game.

The Jays wasted a great outing from John Fuchs who allowed only 5 hits, 3 in the 1st and 2 in the 8th. Between that, Fuchs retired 19 of 20 batters faced with the only man reaching on a hit by pitch in the 5th. Fuchs struck out 12 in the game without allowing a walk. The Upsala offense was led by Eric Lampert, Ben Burggraff, and Scott Biniek who tallied 2 hits apiece. With the loss Upsala is now 1-1 in the Victory League and 2-1 overall.

For more on this game and the entire list of results from the past week along with standings and roster changes, check out the Victory League web site.

-SB