Cologne Rolls Over Hamburg

With three games left in the regular season, last night's game against Hamburg was a must win. The Hollanders took the momentum from Sunday's 17-inning marathon and brought it to Hamburg by beating the Hawks. Once again Casey Clemensen started on the mound and shut down the Hawks offense. The Hawks managed to score a run in the bottom of the third when Hamburg's Justin Perlich lead off with a double, stole third, and then scored on a wild pitch. Other than that the Hawks posed no real threat as Casey went eight innings and only gave up three hits. Tanner Luebke took over for Casey in the final frame and shut down the Hawks by giving up one hit and striking out three. Casey got some help from the offense as the Hollanders bats made some noise. The score was still zero-zero at the start of the third but that changed as the Hollander hitters plated five runs. The third inning rally started when Kyle Twait worked the count and drew a lead off walk and stole second. With one one Carter Clemensen hit a ground ball to the thirdbasemen who made a throwing error which allowed Twait to advance to third. Staying alert, Twait saw that the ball was just laying in the infield with no one attempting to control it so he swiped home for the run. After Carter stole second, Kyle Brazil dropped a shallow single on the right-field line and advanced to second after he stole the bag.With two outs, Tim Swanson came up big and lined a double to left-center to bring around Carter and Brazil. Next batter Jon Kummer decided to top that and put his hit over the left-field fence for his first CRVL homerun (third of the season). It turned out that five runs was way more than what Casey needed, but the good guys scored three more in the fifth as Carter, Anthony Brenner, and Tim Swanson all singled and Alex Meeker came up big with the two out, two RBI double. Cologne ended the night with eight runs off of twelve hits.

It appears as though the Hollanders are finding their stride and good timing, too, as playoffs are right around the corner. Over the past five league games the Hollanders are four and one and have outscored their opponents 23 to 12. Great pitching and defense has been the consistency over the season and as of late the offense is catching up as the Hollanders are getting those clutch hits, which has been the team's Achilles heel. With only two games left in the 2017 regular season, Cologne still has a chance to make some big moves with upcoming games against Young America and Brownton. First up, the Hollanders will go to Young America Thursday night (7:30pm) to make-up the rain-out from May. Hope to see everyone at Wilkommen Park.

Ga Hollanders!