Falls VFW baseball team sweeps Ely, Deer River

“(Monday night) the bats found a way for us to salvage the (second) game for us in the end. But give Ely some credit. They came back, bounced back and put a bunch of runs up on us in the sixth inning to take the lead. A nice rally by our guys to come back and get the win.”

I. Falls 4, Ely 1

In the first game that counted for tournament seeding purposes, the Falls defeated Ely, 4-1.

Cole Miggins pitched all seven innings to record the victory.

The Falls scored first by plating two runs in the opening frame. After Miggins reached base on an error, Ben Humbert and Jack Bartkowski both singled to give the Falls a 2-0 lead.

Ely picked up its only run in the top of the second when four batters reached base with a couple of hits.

The Falls scored again in the bottom of the second. Following a walk by Clay Bergstrom, who then had Max Vergeldt come in as a courtesy runner for him, Connor Ward singled to drive in Vergeldt.

Falls’ final run came in the bottom of the fifth when Miggins again reached base on an error and scored in the inning, which featured a double by Kevin Kilbride.

I. Falls 10, Ely 9

Game two was tied at 4-4 after three innings before the lead see-sawed and the Falls ended up with a 10-9 victory.

Vergeldt started on the mound for the Falls and pitched 4 1/3 innings before leaving the bases loaded in the top of the fifth and being relieved by Jack Bartkowski, who was able to get the first batter he faced to hit into a double play to end the inning.

The Falls took the lead in the bottom of the fifth with three runs. Vergeldt singled and scored on a wild pitch, before two other runners who walked came in to score following a two-out double by Jack Bartkowski.

Ely took a 9-7 lead in the top of the sixth by scoring five runs off Jack Bartkowski, who gave up three hits and four walks facing 10 batters. Humbert then relieved him with the bases loaded to record the final out.

The Falls regained the lead in the bottom of the sixth after leading off the inning with hits from Kilbride, Humbert and Vergeldt.

Kilbride and Humbert scored to tie the game, before Derrick Marquez knocked in Vergeldt for the winning run with an infield grounder Ely’s third baseman wasn’t able to field cleanly.

Humbert closed out the top of the seventh retiring all three batters, the final two on strikeouts.

Falls sweeps Deer River

The Falls swept another doubleheader Tuesday at Deer River, winning the first game, 11-1, and then picking up a 24-14 victory in game two with both games counting for tournament seeding purposes.

Humbert started on the mound in game one with Jack Bartkowski throwing in relief.

Darian Erickson started game two for the Falls with Jakob Eide throwing in relief and Jack Bartkowski closing out the game. The Falls trailed the second game, 14-6, in the fourth inning, before scoring 18 unanswered runs to win.

The pair of doubleheader sweeps improved the Falls' overall record to 9-3 going into Thursday’s doubleheader at Grand Rapids.

Game one

I. Falls 4, Ely 1

Ely 0-1-0 0-0-0 0 — 1

I. Falls 2-1-0 0-1-0 X — 4

WP—Cole Miggins

Game two

I. Falls 10, Ely 9

Ely 0-1-3 0-0-5 0 — 9

I. Falls 2-0-2 0-3-3 X — 10

WP—Ben Humbert