More Late-Inning Heroics Lift Hopkins Legion

Each game seems like a new opportunity for someone on the Hopkins American Legion Post 320 baseball team to step up.

On Saturday night, it was Michael Larson’s turn.

Larson ripped a sacrifice fly to center field in the bottom of the ninth against New Ulm Gold, ending a back-and-forth battle with a 12-11 win in the Minnesota State Legion tournament in Eden Prairie. The victory came after Hopkins topped Albert Lea 3-2 on Saturday morning.

“We’ve gone back and forth in a lot of games,” Andrew Glover said. “But we’ve always seemed to pull them out.”

The win sets up a 10 a.m. matchup against Hermantown on Sunday at Round Lake Stadium.

Post 320 needed a little comeback magic on Saturday against New Ulm Gold. New Ulm capitalized on four Hopkins errors in the third inning and took a 4-1 lead.

Hopkins stormed back at the plate. Hopkins scored four runs in the bottom of the fourth thanks to RBI hits by Aaron Gingerich and Andy Wicklund to take a 5-4 lead.

In the fifth, Post 320 extended its lead with six runs on five hits while capitalizing on three New Ulm errors. Leading 11-4, Hopkins looked poised to advance to Sunday morning.

But New Ulm stormed back.

New Ulm responded with five runs in the sixth inning and two more runs in the seventh to tie the game at 11-11.

That set the stage for Hopkins’ ninth-inning rally, which began with Glover drawing a walk to lead off the frame.

Gingerich followed it up with a walk of his own, and Wicklund laid down a sacrifice bunt that put two runners in scoring position with one out. Larson’s sacrifice fly sent Glover home and kept Hopkins’ season alive.

Post 320 now sits four wins away from the state championship. Hopkins will take wins any way it can, but Glover said he wouldn’t mind earning them in less dramatic fashion come Sunday.

“Even though we’ve shown we can come back from leads, we’d like to get up early and put a team away early,” Glover said. “Because we can do that, too.”