Amateur baseball: Rockies rally to gut Gussies, 9-2

Rossman's bat, arm help clinch Cold Spring win

ST. AUGUSTA — John Rossman entered Sunday’s game without a hit while the Cold Spring Rockies were slumping at the plate.

Sunday was a breakout day for Rossman and a lot of his teammates. Cold Spring had 11 hits, two from Rossman, as the Rockies crushed St. Augusta 9-2 in Central Valley League action.

“I’m typically a good hitter, but I’m getting older now and the younger guys are a little bit better,” said Rossman, who also got the pitching win.

Mike Holbrook led the Rockies with four singles and three runs scored, Dave Jones doubled and homered and Rick Burtzel added two hits.

The win puts Cold Spring at 3-3 in CVL play, and getting back to .500 was the first step in the right direction.

“We haven’t been hitting the ball well lately so it was nice to see us get some hits and hit the ball hard,” Rockies manager Tom Ficker said. “That’s what we’ve been lacking. We haven’t been driving people in and today we got some clutch, two-out hits. That’s how you win ball games.”

The Rockies jumped out to a 3-0 lead after two innings after Holbrook led off the game with an infield hit and scored on a wild pitch.

Holbrook had another infield single in the second inning and took second base on a delayed steal, which allowed Rossman to score from third.

St. Augusta’s No. 9 hitter, Brady Graft, blasted a two-run home run over the right-field fence into the cemetery in the bottom of the second, but the Rockies got one back an inning later.

Cold Spring put the game away with four runs on just two hits in the six inning. Holbrook singled in Ryan Bell and Jones hit a shot into the woods behind the left-field fence.

The Rockies got the leadoff runner on in seven of nine innings.

The Gussies did get six hits against Rossman before he moved to first base in the sixth inning, but they couldn’t get the timely hits. Baserunning gaffes cost them, too.

Aaron Bestgen led off the fourth inning with a single, but got caught in a rundown between first and second base. As Rossman tagged him out, Bestgen twisted his knee and had to be helped off the field. He was removed from the game.

“We just couldn’t get runners on and timely hitting,” St. Augusta manager Dusty Schultzenberg said. “We’ve been struggling with that a lot lately. We’ve left so many runners on base the last few games.”

Cold Spring will play in the Stearns County League Classic next weekend as it works to improve to the level the team was at when it made a run to the final weekend of the 2008 state tournament.

“We have a lot of experience and for a lot of us, this might be our last run,” Rossman said. “There’s a lot of guys who’ve been on this team or 14, 15 years. We’re very solid one through nine. I don’t want to jinx anything, but I think we’re primed to make a run.”