| Four more games, four more victories. After the dust settled this past week the Express found themselves still sitting alone atop the CVL South with a record of 9-0 and an impressive 14-1 mark overall. |
| Pearl Lake |
| It all started Tuesday night as the Express stopped in Watkins to take on the Pearl Lake Lakers making up their game that should have taken place on Mothers Day. The Express battled the scrappy Laker ball club scoring five runs in the sixth and seventh innings to put the game out of reach. Scott Marquardt led the charge in the sixth with a solo homerun deep into the darkness beyond the leftfield wall. |
| Kris Hagen (3-0) started on the mound for the Express. The right hander cruised through six innings, before the Lakers mounted plated three runs in the final three innings. Jeremy Kuechle came on in the ninth inning to put out any hopes of a Laker comeback. Hagen went eight innings striking out three and walking one. |
| Cold Spring Springers |
| On Wednesday evening the Express clashed with the Springers from Cold Spring at Cold Spring Baseball Park. The Express jumped out to an early 3-0 lead after the first inning. Brooks Marquardt led off with a double. He scored on a Jeremy Kuechle single, Scott Marquardt then singled. Joe Pennertz sac bunted both runners into scoring position. A ground out by Mike Arnold and an Aaron Knaus single plated two more runs. The Express added one more run in the second inning making the score 4-0. The Springers came back in the bottom of the second plating two runs on a double off the bat of second baseman Jason Spohn. |
| In the fifth inning Joe Pennertz hit a two run moon ball over the ivy covered left field fence to give the Express a 6-2 lead. Cold Spring scored two more runs in the sixth to get back into the game at 6-4. In the top of the seventh Scott Marquardt tripled and scored on a Mike Arnold double to end all scoring for the game, giving the Express a 7-4 lead. |
| Justin Hill (4-0) started on the mound for the Express and pitched a gem of a game. Hill went six innings (H 8, R 4, ER 2, SO 2, BB 2) allowing only two earned runs. This was the right handers fifth start of the season. Joe Krippner came on in relief of Hill in the seventh inning and pitched tremendously giving up one hit in three innings of work as he held the Springer in check. Krippner came over to Kimball three years ago after playing for St. Augusta. Since his departure from the Gussies he has found himself a role for the Express and has handled himself magnificently in a middle relief role logging many innings. |
| Cold Spring Rockies |
| On Saturday the Express found themselves taking on the other Cold Spring team. The CVL rival Rockies. The game was played in Cold Spring but Kimball was the home team and prevailed with some late inning heroics winning 7-6 on a Nate Turck suicide squeeze scoring pitcher Brooks Marquardt for the game ending winning run. |
| This game was the tail of two innings. The Rockies jumped all over the Express in the top of the second taking advantage of three Express errors. They scored all six of their runs in the second inning. Only two of the runs were earned. The Express came right back in the bottom of the inning scoring four runs themselves to make it a 6-4 ball game. The Rockies did not record another hit the rest of the game as starting pitcher Brooks Marquardt settled down and kept them in check. |
| Kimball trailed 6-4 going into the bottom of the ninth. In the ninth they recorded four straight singles. Aaron Knaus led off with a line drive single to centerfield, Pat Arnold followed with a soft line drive to right field moving Knaus to third. Brooks Marquardt singled scoring Knaus. Arnold then advanced to third on a passed ball. Brian Marquardt singled scoring Arnold, knotting the score at 6-6 with Brooks Marquardt moving the third. Nate Turck then laid down a perfect suicide squeeze bunt to score Brooks and give the Express the come from behind victory. Brooks Marquardt (3-0) went all nine innings allowing only five hits, all of which came in the second inning. |
| Luxemburg |
| The Express traveled to Luxemburg for the second time this season as they duked it out with the Brewers in a CVL matchup. Kimball came out victorious snatching the season series from the Brewers as they won 4-2. |
| Kimball started Pat Arnold (4-0). He had a terrible time with his control as he walked seven batters. He still managed to only allow one hit. That hit came in the eighth inning off the bat of Bruce Kiffemeyer. The two runs the Brewers scored were on account of two walks a sac bunt and a couple of wild pitches. |
| The Express were led by Scott Marquardt and Joe Pennertz as Scott went 3-4 with two rbi?s and Pennertz went 2-4 with a solo homerun in the eighth inning. Brooks Marquardt was 2-4 with a double and scored two of the four Express runs on the day. |
| Jeremy Kuechle relieved Pat Arnold in the ninth to pick up his third save of the year. |
| News and Notes |
| This is the best start for the Kimball Express since the mid 80?s during the Todd Spaulding era. Manager Tom Marquardt remembers the team going undefeated one year, but the total of games played that year was close to how many games the Express have played already this year and they still have all of June and July to go yet. |
| Note about article last week, the Express didn?t lose the game to the New Ulm Brewers on the account of bad weather. That was a typo. Tuesday the Express are in Watkins again to play the St. Augusta Gussies. This is a scheduled game, not a make up game. This will be the two teams first meeting of the season. The Gussies are in second place behind the Express in the CVL South. Friday Kimball will be in Monticello and Sunday in Pearl Lake. |
| Express Steam Rolling |