| The Express won two Central Valley League games this past weekend at Kimball Veterans Memorial Field as the Litchfield Blues were in town on Saturday and the Eden Valley Hawks swooped in for nine innings on Sunday to wrap up a very successful regular season for the hometown Express. |
| Eden Valley |
| Mike Arnold broke open a 1-1 tie in the sixth inning driving in two runs to propel the Express to their 14th league win of the season in the regular season finale and brother Pat Arnold (7-0) pitched seven innings to pick up his seventh win of the season. This is the most wins Arnold has ever recorded in a season. |
| Eden Valley struck first as Joe Theil led off the game with a double down the left field line. He was driven in on a Joby McCann single. The Hawks didn?t score again until the ninth inning as Pat Arnold settled in and kept the Hawks in check. |
| The Express came back in the second inning to tie it up as Mike Arnold drew a walk and later scored on a single by second baseman Brian Marquardt. The score stayed knotted at one until Mike Arnold drove in two with a one out line drive single into leftfield in the sixth inning. The Express added one more run in the seventh inning as Pat Arnold got to hit for himself after Joe Krippner had been in the DH spot hitting for him in the early innings. Pat doubled down the leftfield line and scored from second base on a Nate Turck single to right center. |
| In the top of the eighth Joe Krippner came in relief of Arnold, Joe pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning and ran in to a little trouble in the ninth as he gave up one run. Jeremy Kuechle came in to relieve Joe in the ninth to record the last two outs of the game to pick up his fourth save of the season. |
| The win improves the Express overall record to 24-3 and they finish 14-2 in the CVL taking first place in the North Division and first place overall in the CVL. |
| Litchfield |
| Justin Hill (7-0) gave Litchfield the blues on Saturday as he pitched all nine innings picking up the complete game one hit shutout. Hill cruised through all nine innings facing only one batter over the minimum as he struck out five and walked nobody. The right hander is having one of his best seasons yet with seven wins on the year. Quite an amazing feat since he went under the knife last fall to repair some damage in his shoulder. |
| It was a heck of a pitcher?s duel as the Blues threw Bill Bragg the staff ace. Bragg went all nine innings giving up only five hits. However, one of the five hits was a one out solo homerun in the seventh inning by Mike Arnold. Arnold made the ball look small in a hurry as he got into a fastball sending it on a line over the Blue Monster in leftfield. That was all Hill needed as he retired the Blues in order in the eighth and ninth innings. |
| Aaron Knaus added a double along with singles by Brooks Marquardt, Jeremy Kuechle and Brian Marquardt. |
| News & Notes |
| This Sunday at Kimball Veterans Memorial Field the Express start the CVL playoffs, as they will host the Pearl Lake Lakers. Kimball is the one seed and the Lakers are the four seed in the North. Pearl Lake is on a bit of a roll as they beat the St. Augusta Gussies in a slugfest this past Sunday winning 14-11. The Lakers have played the Express very close in both meetings this season coming up short in those two contests 6-3 and 3-2. In the other game St. Augusta will be in Eden Valley taking on the Hawks, winners will play winners, losers play losers in week two of the league playoffs. |
| Look for a very good game on Sunday as both the Lakers and Express are playing for a berth into the Region 10C tournament. Two teams from the CVL North and two teams from the CVL South will advance in the double elimination league playoffs. Region 10C is a six-team tourney with the other two teams coming out of the Lakewood League East. The favorites to come out of the Lakewood East are the Clear Lake Lakers and the Sauk Rapids Cyclones. A site for the Region 10C tourney is yet to be determined, although it is Cold Spring?s turn to host as last year they were host of the 2002 state tournament and could not host the region tournament because of state tourney being held on their field. |
| The Express would like to thank the many fans that have come out and supported them so far this season. In the three games played on the home field, the Express players would really like to let the fans who have come out in support know that it does go noticed and it is great to see everyone down at the ballpark. Thank you and we hope to keep the train going all the way to Northfield and Dundas for the 2003 state tournament. |
| Express finish regular season with two wins |