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In Cotter High School’s last game of the regular season — a game it won 14-5 over Goodhue — Chen got the call from coach Mat O’Brien in the bottom of the fourth inning.
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Cotter's David Miller slides safely into third on a triple that also scored a run Friday as the ball bounces just out of reach of Goodhue's Derek Lunde during Cotter's final game of the regular season in Winona. (photo by Katie Derus/Winona DailyNews) |
After Andy Wolfe singled to lead off the inning, Chen was called on to pinch run.
Chen, a junior, is a Yantai, China, native, who has attended Cotter the last two years, and, to be honest, doesn’t know an entire lot about baseball.
“I was a little bit nervous,” Chen admitted.
Nonetheless, there Chen was getting his lead at first base.
“He was just telling me what he was going to do,” Cotter first-base coach Bob Biebel joked.
After a couple of pitches, Goodhue’s Ethan Tutewohl fired to first, keeping Chen honest, not that he was ever thinking steal.
“Everyone was a little concerned,” Cotter senior Joe Coron said. “We didn’t know what was going to happen. We weren’t sure if he knew what he was doing.”
Chen had it under control.
After a strikeout, Thomas O’Brien came up and nailed a single. Chen cruised to second, and then to third after a Matt Wolfe groundout.
That, however, was where he was stranded.
It was one of those games for the Ramblers where everyone got to play. The playoffs start on Tuesday.
“It was nice to get everyone in,” coach O’Brien said. “Tiger and Jun Su Kim got their first opportunities to play.”
Kim, a Seoul, South Korea, native, who is going to Penn State next year — not to play baseball — entered the game in the third to pinch hit and struck out.
It was, however, the third inning where Cotter did a lot of its damage.
After scoring six in the second, sending 12 batters to the plate, Cotter scored five in the third, including RBI doubles from Beau Brackey and Kris Murphy, who was 2-for-2.
Cotter was ahead by 10 heading into the fifth inning, but Goodhue’s Eric Ryan nailed a solo home run off the garage beyond the center field fence. Goodhue scored another on a Sean Thomforde RBI single to keep the game from ending by the 10-run rule.
Scott Ryan finished 2-for-3 with three runs scored, two stolen bases and an RBI double for Cotter, while teammate David Miller was 2-for-2 with an RBI triple in the first inning. He also stole a base.
Thomas O’Brien was 2-for-3 with two RBIs, Andy Wolfe was 2-for-4 and Matt Wolfe went 1-for-4 with an RBI and two stolen bases for the Ramblers, who host Dover-Eyota at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the first round of the Section 1AA playoffs.
