Hits, runs, win elude Saxony in Class 2 sectional

~ Valle's Greminger fires no-hitter as Crusaders' season ends with 11-0 loss.

With Valle Catholic hurler Mike Greminger throwing a no-hitter in the fifth inning, Saxony Lutheran batter Seth Stevens stroked a pitch out to the Warriors' right fielder, who was playing shallow enough that he was able to field the ball and fire to first base to record the out.

"That was nice," Greminger said. "He was playing shallow, so I figured that if they hit something hard, he had a chance to get them out."

The Valle defense made every play behind Greminger, who tossed a no-hitter. The Warriors beat Saxony 11-0 in six innings at Saxony Lutheran in a Class 2 sectional contest.

The Crusaders had home-field advantage. They used both their ace pitchers -- Garrett Fritsche and Chris Roth -- to try to stop the Valle hitting attack. And all nine starters, along with some bench players, even sported mohawk haircuts, which they had styled for good luck the morning of the game.

But nothing the Crusaders (22-4) did prevented Valle (23-5) from eliminating them from the postseason for a third straight year.

Saxony made seven errors. Three of them were committed during a six-run fifth inning, while three more were committed during a three-run sixth inning.

"We just didn't play well," Saxony coach Paul Sander said. "Unfortunately in baseball you can never gauge exactly when that's going to happen. And it happened at a bad time. We made seven errors to my calculation, and we probably hadn't made seven errors in the last seven to eight games."

Greminger, who also is the quarterback for the Valle football team, overpowered Saxony hitters. He struck out nine, including the side in order in the first inning. He pitched to the minimum number of batters -- 18 -- over six innings. The only hitter to reach base off Greminger was Spencer Sander, who walked with one out in the fourth.

But Greminger got the next hitter, Fritsche, to ground into an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play.

"He mixes pitches well and he threw them all for strikes," Fritsche said about Greminger. "He was usually ahead in the count, so it's easier to pitch whenever you're ahead in the count. This is probably one of our worst hitting games all year. We just couldn't make contact at all."

Saxony's Bret Steffens added: "We didn't put the bat on the ball like we usually do. You can't afford to do that in a game like this where you're playing a great team."

Fritsche started on the mound. The right-hander allowed an unearned run in the first inning. The Crusaders fell behind 2-0 when Greminger stroked an RBI double in the fourth.

"In those first few innings I felt pretty good," Fritsche said. "The first run got in on an error, so it was a bad start, but after that I just calmed down and I was trying to do what I can do. I guess the fifth inning we started making errors, and that just really got to me after a couple of them and they started scoring runs. ... 2-0 wasn't that big of a deal, but once they started to score more than that, that's when it sort of sunk in that, 'This was about it. I don't know if we're going to come back.'"

Three of the first four Valle runners in the fifth reached on errors. That was followed by three straight run-scoring hits. Roth replaced Fritsche during the fifth.

"It was just one of those days we weren't hitting the ball, so you think you have to play perfect defense, and it just kind of snowballed on us," Bret Steffens said. "We made one error and we didn't let it stop there. We made another one and another one."

Greminger, meanwhile, pitched his first no-hitter in high school. Twice this year he had no-hitters broken up while trying to record the final out.

This time he retired the final hitter, Ryan Sprandel, on a fly out to right field.

"I knew he was going to swing at first-pitch fastball," Greminger said about Sprandel's at bat. "I still threw it. Thank God he hit it right at somebody."

Valle Catholic 100 163 -- 11 11 0

Saxony Lutheran 000 000 -- 0 0 7

WP -- Mike Greminger. LP -- Garrett Fritsche. 2B -- Jason Blum (VC), Greminger (VC). Multiple hits -- Valle: Aaron Basler 3-4, Blum 2-3, Greminger 3-4.