Amateur Baseball: River Falls looks to keep winning streak alive (10 photos)

The River Falls Fighting Fish feasted on some home cooking last week, registering four wins in five days to extend their winning streak to six straight and maintain their grip on first place in the St. Croix Valley Baseball League.

The Fish decked the Red Wing Aces, 10-3, last Wednesday night in their first game in ten days and followed that up with an 8-4 victory over the Faribault Lakers Friday night. They followed that up with a pair of mercy-rule wins over SCVBL foes, topping the Prescott Pirates 14-3 in seven innings Saturday night and beating the New Richmond Millers, 14-4, in eight innings Sunday.

The Fish take a 19-6 overall record and 12-2 SCVBL mark into three league games this week beginning Wednesday at home against the Plum City Blues at 7:30 p.m. for Feyereisen Foundation Night. They’ll visit the Osceola Braves for a 7:30 p.m. game Friday night before returning home to host the Hudson River Rats Saturday at 7 p.m. River Falls’ lone league loss this season came at Hudson by a 3-1 score on June 22.

The Fish’s 14-4, eight-inning win over New Richmond Sunday wasn’t so much a route as it was a drip-drip. River Falls scored in every inning but the second and sixth, scoring five runs in the seventh and eighth to walk off with the 10-run victory. River Falls collected 17 hits, eight of them doubles including two each from Brian Giebel, Chase McQuade and Cayden Mueller.

The Fish erased an early 1-0 deficit with four runs in the bottom of the first on a two-run single by Lucas Luedtke, an RBI sac fly by Weston Lombard and a run-scoring double by McQuade. McQuade added an RBI sac fly in the third and Luedtke singled in another run in the fourth to make it a 6-1 game.

Trey Larson drove in three runs in the fifth with a bases-loaded double to extend the lead to 9-2 and Giebel doubled in a run during a three-run seventh to make the score 12-4 before Elijah Baker’s two-run double in the eighth gave the Fish the 14-4 walk-off win.

Leadoff hitter Giebel went 3-for-3 at the plate with one RBI, two stolen bases and three runs scored. Luedtke and Larson had two hits and three RBI each while McQuade and Baker added two hits and two RBI apiece.

Kyle Fritz went all eight innings on the mound, scattering five hits while striking out seven and walking four.

The night before at home against Prescott, River Falls scored six runs in the first inning, three in the second and four more in the fifth in a 14-3 win over the Pirates.

Larson singled, doubled twice, scored three times and drove in a run and Fritz had two hits and three RBI while Luedtke singled, doubled and had two RBI. Carter Elliott doubled in a pair of runs during the five-run fifth and Lombard doubled in a run while McQuade and Curti had an RBI each.

Jake Lindsay earned the pitching win, allowing three runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts and a walk in six innings of work.

Friday night against Faribault, Charlie Griffin held the Lakers to two hits in six innings on the mound and Lombard had three hits, including a double, and three RBI in the Fish’s 8-4 victory. Baker doubled in one run and Elliott and Spencer Diedrich had an RBI each while Mueller singled twice and scored twice.

Diedrich hit a home run in his first game this season, a solo shot in the fifth to give the Fish a 2-1 lead, and River Falls went on to score seven times in the seventh on the way to a 10-3 win over Red Wing, despite committing six errors in the field.

Fritz had two hits, including a double, and three RBI and Lombard and McQuade drove in two runs each while Giebel contributed an RBI triple. Eli Condon earned the victory on the mound in relief of starter Jaxin Larson, allowing one unearned run on one hit with six strikeouts in three innings of work. Larson gave up two runs on five hits over the first five innings.