Senior infielder Drew Simonette collected three hits and scored twice Thursday as St. Peter defeated Mankato East 6-2 in a nonconference baseball game at Wolverton Field.
While Simonette stood out at the plate, freshman left-hander Alex Korir made his varsity debut a memorable one by allowing only one earned run over 5 1/3 innings. Korir gave up five hits while striking out four and walking four.
Senior right-hander Kaeden Guida, a Minnesota State commit, struck out one and didn’t allow a hit in getting the final five outs.
“We really limited our strikeouts today and put the ball in play,” St. Peter coach Kurt Moelter said. “We had been averaging double digits in strikeouts, and now we’re starting to make the adjustments, When you put the ball in play, good things happen and good things happened for us today.
“These guys really enjoy coming to the park every day. This team is willing to learn and it really helps to be senior-dominated. I’ve known this group of guys since they were 10-years-old and I began coaching them.”
St. Peter (3-1) tallied a first-inning run of Cougars’ junior left-hander Owen Studtmann when Simonette lined a double into the left-field corner and eventually scored on Guida’s sacrifice fly to right field.
After East (3-1) didn’t score on back-to-back doubles from junior left fielder Caden Hansen and junior right fielder Jack Hansen because of a caught stealing, the Saints made it 2-0 on Tate Olson’s RBI double in the fourth inning.
“We just didn’t make adjustments at the plate,” East coach Micah Degner said. “We didn’t adjust to his off-speed pitches or his fastball to put the ball in play enough. Usually, Owen is sharper at hitting his spots. We didn’t have his back a couple of times defensively or it could have been a tighter game at the end. We’ve pitched and played pretty good defense through four games so we just have to be patient until the bats come around.”
St. Peter parlayed a trio of hits — Braxon Dale, Simonette and Guida — along with a hit by pitch and an error into three runs in the fifth. All of the damage came after the first two hitters were retired.
Studtman was tagged with three earned runs while giving up five hits with two strikeouts and three walks over five innings. Junior right-hander Jacob Langworthy struck out four and walked three in giving up a run on one hit over the final two frames.
“We worked on some things at practice and swung the bats much better today,” Simonette said. “We didn’t strike out nearly as much, and when we had two strikes, we were able to put the ball in play. We expect to make a run this year. We have a lot of energy to go along with good hitting, good speed and good fielding. … We know what we need to do.”
East scored its two runs in the bottom of the fifth when Caden Hansen reached on an error and scored on Jack Hansen’s RBI double down the left-field line. Sophomore center fielder Carson Hart drove in the final run with an infield ground-out. Caden Hansen and Jack Hansen each had two hits, while senior shortstop Nicholas Werk, who made a handful of fine defensive plays, added a fifth-inning single.
“I haven’t been hitting too well so I went into the cage to figure things out,” Caden Hansen said. “We’re like a family and having such a great environment here is going to help us win games. We need to get louder on the bench and quit making mental errors.”
East hosts Rochester Century in a doubleheader at noon Saturday, while St. Peter travels Saturday to Stewartville.