Frazee to host Perham on Tuesday

By Chad Koenen

Publisher

The Frazee Hornets capped off a busy week of conference action with a two-game sweep over the Hawley Nuggets on Thursday night. The sweep came on the heels of a pair of losses to Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton on Tuesday night in Heart O’ Lakes Conference action.

The Hornets are 5-5 on the season and will host Perham in a Battle of the Bees matchup on Tuesday night in Frazee. Following Tuesday’s doubleheader, the Hornets will host Breckenridge in a doubleheader on Thursday night. 

Tuesday

Frazee dropped a pair of Heart O’ Lakes Conference games against Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton on Tuesday night by scores of 11-8 and 14-0. 

In the opening game of the day, DGF jumped out to an early 3-0 lead and never looked back as they took advantage of 5 Frazee errors to come away with a 14-0 win in five innings. The Rebels scored 3 runs in the first, 2 in the second, 5 in the third and 4 runs in the fourth inning to come away with the win.

The Hornets were outhit by a 9-2 margin with Zach Longfors hitting a double and Asher Blaine hitting a single in the loss. 

Longfors took the loss on the mound after pitching 3 2/3 innings and giving 13 runs, 5 of which were earned and striking out 1 hitter. 

The Hornets flipped the script a bit in the second game of the night as Frazee jumped out to an early 4-0 after the top half of the first inning, but DGF answered with a big 6 run bottom of the second inning that proved to be the difference in an 11-8 Rebel win.

Kale Ovsak and Zach Longfors led off the game with back-to-back singles, before Caden Frank and Mark Jaroszewski were hit by-back-to-back pitches. The first run came across the plate by a balk and Frazee’s second run crossed the plate on an error on an attempted steal. 

After loading up the bases with no one out, Asher Blaine forced in the third run of the game when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. The fourth run would cross the plate later in the inning on a wild pitch to make the score 4-0 in the top of the first inning. 

DGF answered with a 3-run bottom of the first inning, before Jaroszewski hit a two out RBI double to bring the Hornets fifth run across the plate and make the score 5-3. 

Unfortunately, DGF took the lead for good with a 6-run bottom of the second inning to come away with a sweep by a score of 11-8. 

Frazee had its best scoring chance outside of the first inning with a 2-run top of the fourth inning when Drew Mekalson and Logan Brekke hit back-to-back RBI singles with 2 outs to cut the score to 10-8. 

As a team the Hornets outhit the Rebels by a 13-10 margin, but 6 errors proved to be too much to overcome.

Logan Brekke led the way by going 3-4 with 2 RBIs, while Kale Ovsak, Mark Jaroszewski, Derek Zitzow and Drew Mekalson all finished with multiple hit games. 

Jaroszewski took the loss on the mound after pitching 5 innings and giving up 6 earned runs and 10 hits, while striking out 4 Rebels. 

Thursday

Frazee swept a doubleheader against Hawley on Thursday night by scores of 4-2 and 15-4. 

In the opening game of the night, Tyler Moe scored on a Kale Ovsak fielder’s choice to break a scoreless tie in the top of the fifth inning. Hawley answered with a run of its own when the Nuggets tied the game 1-1 in the bottom of the sixth inning on a two out error to set up a thrilling top of the seventh inning for the Hornets.

After Drew Mekalson lined out to lead off the inning, Tyler Moe and Kale Ovsak were hit by pitches to put runners on first and second base with one out. That’s when Caden Frank came through with a big 3-run home run to put the Hornets in front 4-1.

Hawley had a chance to tie, or win the game in the bottom of the seventh inning thanks to a pair of errors that brought 1 run across the plate and left runners on second and third base with just one out, but Mekalson forced a double play to get out of the jam and give the Hornets the win. Mekalson and Asher Blaine were tremendous on the mound as they combined to pitch 7 innings and didn’t give up an earned run, while striking out 8 Nuggets in the win. 

In the second game of the night, the Hornets jumped out to an early lead and never looked back as they came away with a 15-4 win in five innings. The Hornets needed just 8 hits to come away with 15 runs as they took advantage of 3 Nugget errors and 9 walks. 

After Hawley scored a pair of runs in the top of the first inning, Frazee answered with 7 runs in the bottom of the first inning with almost all of the damage taking place with two outs. The Hornets continued with 4 runs in the bottom of the second inning and 4 more runs in the bottom of the third inning to complete the two game sweep.

Offensively the Hornets were led by Kale Ovsak who finished with 2 hits and 3 RBIs, while Asher Blaine was a perfect 3-3 with 3 runs scored in the win. 

Derek Zitzow picked up the win on the mound as he went all 5 innings and gave up 6 hits and 2 earned runs, while striking out 7 hitters.

Frazee vs. DGF

4 p.m.

AB R H     BI

Kale Ovsak 3 1 2 0

Zach Longfors 5 1 1 0

Caden Frank 4 1 1 0

Mark Jaroszewski 3 2 2 1

Derek Zitzow 4 1 2 0

Asher Blaine 3 1 0 1

Gage Post 4 0 0 0

Drew Mekalson 4 0 2 1

Logan Brekke 4 0 3 2

Tyler Moe 0 1 0 0

HITTING- 2B- Mark Jaroszewski 2

PITCHING (ip-h-r-er-bb-k)- Mark Jaroszewski 5.0-10-10-6-3-4, Drew Mekalson 1.0-0-1-0-0-0

Frazee vs. DGF

6 p.m.

AB R H     BI

Kale Ovsak 3 0 0 0

Zach Longfors 2 0 1 0

Caden Frank 2 0 0 0

Mark Jaroszewski 3 0 0 0

Derek Zitzow 2 0 0 0

Asher Blaine 2 0 1 0

Gage Post 2 0 0 0

Drew Mekalson 2 0 0 0

Tyler Moe 1 0 0 0

Logan Brekke 0 0 0 0

HITTING- 2B- Zach Longfors

PITCHING (ip-h-r-er-bb-k)- Zach Longfors 3.2-8-5-13-3-1, Gage Post 1.1-1-1-0-1-3

Frazee vs. Hawley

4 p.m.

AB R H     BI

Kale Ovsak 2 1 0 1

Caden Frank 4 1 1 3

Zach Longfors 4 0 2 0

Mark Jaroszewski 4 0 0 0

Derek Zitzow 3 0 1 0

Asher Blaine 2 0 1 0

Gage Post 2 0 0 0

Drew Mekalson 3 0 0 0

Tyler Moe 2 2 1 0

Cael Pausch 0 0 0 0

Logan Brekke 0 0 0 0

HITTING- 2B- Asher Blaine

PITCHING (ip-h-r-er-bb-k)- Asher Blaine 5.2-4-1-0-6-6, Drew Mekalson 1.1-1-1-0-0-2 

Frazee vs. Hawley

6 p.m.

AB R H     BI

Kale Ovsak 2 0 2 3

Caden Frank 3 1 1 2

Zach Longfors 3 1 0 0

Weston Mickelson 0 0 0 0

Nathan Longfors 1 0 0 0

Mark Jaroszewski 2 2 1 1

Tyler Moe 1 0 0 0

Derek Zitzow 3 0 0 1

Asher Blaine 3 3 3 0

Gage Post 0 3 0 0

Drew Mekalson 0 3 0 2

Logan Brekke 3 2 1 2

HITTING- 2B- Caden Frank, Logan Brekke

PITCHING (ip-h-r-er-bb-k)- Derek Zitzow 5.0-6-4-2-0-7