A Shutout, Blowout and Triple Play Highlight Owatonna’s Home Sports Tuesday

OHS boys tennis opened sections with a 7-0 shutout of Austin, boys lacrosse whipped Mankato 12-1 and softball capped their 11-2 victory over Austin with a game-ending triple play.

The spring sports postseason began locally on Tuesday with Owatonna hosting Austin in the Section 1AA boys tennis tournament. Owatonna blanked the Packers 7-0 and will go to Rochester Mayo on Thursday.

The Huskies softball team finished off their 11-2 win over Austin with a game-ending triple play. With the bases loaded in the seventh inning, Austin's batter sent a line drive toward Huskies third baseman Kirstin Pumper. She caught the ball, stepped on third for the second out and fired to second for the third out. The Huskies also turned a double play in the game. Other defensive gems included right fielder Kayla Johnson throwing out a base runner at third, Riley Sheehy catching a line drive in center field and Ellie Rohman making a great grab of a backhand short hop and throwing the batter out at first.

Owatonna's boys lacrosse team broke a scoreless tie late in the first quarter and kept pouring it on during a 12-1 victory over Mankato at OHS. The Huskies scored goals 13 seconds apart to open the scoring. They put four into the net in the second frame, including one by Mitchell Wiese as time expired, to give the Huskies a 6-0 halftime advantage. Josh Nelson and Nathan Smith each scored a hat trick. Goalie Ryan Johnson made several point-blank saves and kept the shutout until the closing minute of the third quarter.

Owatonna's girls lacrosse team improved to 10-1 on the season and wrapped up the outright Big Nine Conference championship with a 21-1 victory in Mankato. John Millea of the Minnesota State High School League wrote a nice feature on the Huskies.

Sports scoreboard for Tuesday, May 17
Baseball
Owatonna 9, Austin 7
Faribault BA 11, NRHEG 1
Medford 14, Triton 3
Mayo 4, Faribault 0
Northfield 4, Red Wing 0
Cannon Falls 4, Rochester Lourdes 3
Kasson-Mantorville 10, Byron 7
Lyle-Pacelli 3, No. 1 Randolph 2 (10 innings)

Softball
Owatonna 11, Austin 2
NRHEG 11, Faribault BA 4
Lourdes 10, Triton 9
Mayo 6, Faribault 1 (17 innings)
Mankato East 20, Rochester JM 0 (five innings)
Kasson-Mantorville 15, Goodhue 0
Pine Island 5, Byron 1

Track and field
NRHEG had the following Gopher Conference championship performances

• Boys: 4x800 team of Tyler Schlaak, Agro Gushwa, John Cole and Nate Krause
• Girls: Sophia Fischer (shot put), Hailey Schuller (100 hurdles) and Maddie Wagner (long jump)