Legion baseball: Alexandria drops doubleheader to West Fargo

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The Fat Daddy’s Alexandria American Legion Post 87 baseball team suffered a doubleheader sweep against the big class North Dakota state champions on Monday night.

Alexandria came into the night believing it could play with West Fargo but made too many mistakes to stay in either game. Post 87 fell 12-4 in the nightcap after losing 11-0 in five innings in the opener.

Alexandria led 3-2 after four innings before things got away from them in game two. Zach Peterson had an RBI single in the fourth and Nick Knoblach got his team on the board in the second with an RBI off a fielder’s choice.

West Fargo’s response to that early deficit was a seven-run fifth inning. Six singles, a walk and a hit-by-pitch that inning led to a lead that West Fargo never let get away.

Beau Backhaus pitched well through four innings before running into trouble in the fifth. He took the loss after going 4 1/3 innings. He allowed eight runs, seven earned, on six hits and three walks.

Post 87 put nine West Fargo runners on base by walks and hit batsmen in each game. Those self-inflicted wounds were too much to overcome against an already talented team.

“You just can’t allow that many base runners to reach with walks and hit by pitch, especially to already good hitting teams,” head coach Kevin Engebretson said. “It showed up at the end of the night on the scoreboard.”

AJ Anderson took the loss in game one after struggling to find the strike zone through 3 1/3 innings. He gave up six hits, walked four and hit four batters as West Fargo got to him for nine runs, seven of which were earned.

Alexandria managed just two hits offensively. Nick Knoblach and Pat Leary both singled, while Blake Stockert reached on a walk.

“Overall, although we did see a nice West Fargo team, it was not a great day of baseball for our guys,” Engebretson said. “We came out pretty flat and that just can’t happen.”

GAME STATISTICS

WEST FARGO 010 173 0 – 12 11 0

ALEXANDRIA 010 210 0 – 4 6 2

ALEXANDRIA PITCHING – Backhaus – L, 4 1/3IP, 6H, 8R, 7ER, 3BB, 4SO; Knoblach – 2/3IP, 2H, 1R, 1ER, 0BB, 0SO; Logan Serum – 2IP, 3H, 3R, 3ER, 4BB, 0SO

ALEXANDRIA OFFENSE – Eric Murphy – 1-3, 2B, 1 run; Knoblach – 2 BB, 1 run, RBI; Leary – 2 runs; Jeff Swedberg – RBI; Christian Anderson – 1-2, BB; Stockert – 1-2; Peterson – 1-2, BB, RBI; Ben Kluver – 1-3; Kris Setterstrom – 1-2

WEST FARGO 240 50 – 11 8 1

ALEXANDRIA 000 00 – 0 2 3

ALEXANDRIA PITCHING – AJ Anderson – L, 3 1/3IP, 6H, 9R, 7ER, 4BB, 4HB, 4SO; Serum – 1 2/3IP, 2H, 2R, 1ER, 0BB, 2SO

ALEXANDRIA OFFENSE – Knoblach – 1-3; Leary – 1-2; Stockert – BB

Tags: alexandria sports, sports, legion, baseball