Spartans Come Up Short in Season Opener

RICHMOND – The ROCORI Spartans baseball team opened up the 2019 high school baseball season on Tuesday evening at the Richmond Baseball Park.

The game, which was originally scheduled to take place on Thursday at the Cold Spring Baseball Park, was moved up to Tuesday due to forecasted snow in the area.

In the game, ROCORI nearly completed a late-game rally to come back and top Fergus Falls in the opening game of the year, but ultimately fell short in the season opener 2-1.

The Spartans fell behind in the top of the third inning, when the Otters got on the board first, jumping out to a 1-0 lead.

Trailing 2-0 heading into the bottom half of the seventh inning, ROCORI cut the Fergus Falls lead to 2-1 and had the bases loaded with two outs in the final half-inning, but couldn’t get the game-tying run to cross home plate.

Rudy Notch led the way for the Spartans, finishing 1-for-3 with one RBI. Brady Klehr, Jack Steil and Sam Distel each tallied one hit for ROCORI, which finished with four team hits.

Klehr started the game on the mound for ROCORI, tossing the first four innings. He gave up just two hits, one unearned run, one walk and struck out two. Notch ended up pitching two innings in relief, giving up one unearned run and striking out two, while Steil pitching the final inning, giving up no hits, no runs and recording two strikeouts.

Due to incoming weather, the Spartans' game this Friday against Central Lakes Conference opponent Alexandria, originally scheduled to be played at Knute Nelson Field in Alexandria, has been postponed to a TBD date. To view the ROCORI Baseball schedules, click here.

Make sure to follow ROCORI Baseball on Facebook and Twitter for any weather-related updates surrounding that game.