By Luther Dorr

A day after extending their winning streak to 12 with a forfeit win over Aitkin here on Friday, the Princeton Panthers nearly had a lost weekend.

Playing in the Rum River Bandits tournament in Cambridge, the Panthers lost 3-2 on Saturday morning to Ham Lake (0-15) and 8-6 that night to the Bloomington Bandits (17-11).

Jake Snyder pitched five innings in Princeton's 3-2 loss to Ham Lake June 27. 

A 10-run seventh inning on Sunday powered the team to an 18-6 win over Rum River that left the season record at 15-3 (8-1 in the Eastern Minny).

“We were flat, no doubt about it,” said manager Jules Zimmer. “We had a rainout and then a forfeit and maybe that [10-day] layoff had something to do with it. But it’s anybody’s game once it starts and we didn’t play very well.”

The team has not had the same lineup in back-to-back games this season and Zimmer said “that’s town team baseball.”

“Everybody has commitments,” he said, “and it’s hard to plan but that’s a way of life in town team.”

The bats began to come alive in a rally during the Bloomington game and then the team hit well against Rum River, Zimmer said.

The Panthers had games scheduled on Monday and Tuesday this week against Isanti and Quamba and then plays Isanti here Sunday at 5 p.m.

Isanti, as of Sunday, was 8-2 in division play and Princeton was 8-1. Isanti lost 1-0 to Chisago Lakes after losing 12-8 to Princeton earlier.

The Panthers play at Chisago Lakes next Wednesday.

Ham Lake

The Panthers left nine runners on base in the seven-inning game against the Freeze, a team that hadn’t won a game for two years. Three of those runners were on third, three on second.

Tyler Roehl’s single drove in a run in the second for a 1-0 lead but Ham Lake scored two runs in the third, one unearned, to lead 2-1.

Ham Lake upped its lead to 3-1 with a solo homer in the fifth and Princeton didn’t score again until a solo homer by Jake Maros with two outs in the seventh.

Jake Snyder pitched five innings and took the tough-luck loss. Recent signee Bill Bragg made his first Panther appearance and struck out the side in the sixth.

“We just didn’t play a good game,” said manager Jules Zimmer. “We made four errors and left all those runners on base.”

Bloomington

Bloomington had a 6-1 lead after batting in the top of the fifth, the Panthers scoring on an RBI single by Jesse Zimmer in the third.

Zimmer then hit a solo homer to lead off the fifth after Princeton left runners on third in the third and fourth innings.
Four runs in the sixth tied the game at 6-6.

Tyler Roehl led off the inning with a homer, Tony Stay doubled home a run and Zimmer singled in two more.

But Bloomington scored twice in the seventh on bases-loaded walks, although the inning ended with a triple play when third baseman Maros fielded a ball, tagged a runner and then got two force outs.

Rum River

Maros was the emergency starting pitcher for the Panthers and pitched into the fifth when Jordan Neubauer relieved and ended up getting the win.

Princeton led 4-0 in the third, saw the Bandits get to within one at 4-3 and then took a 6-3 lead in the fourth.

With the score 6-5 in the sixth Stay hit a two-run homer to make it 8-5 after doubling earlier.

Neubauer escaped a jam in the sixth, leaving the bases loaded after a run scored, and the Panthers took an 8-6 lead into the seventh inning.

Seven batters came to the plate before there was an out as Zimmer had a two-run single and Brian Dorr a grand-slam homer in the 10-run inning.

PANTHER NOTES:  Tony Stay, visiting Minnesota long enough to be eligible for the playoffs, was 5 for 11 in the tournament and had three doubles and a homer. Stay has been the team’s starting shortstop for a decade . . .  Jake Maros extended his homer streak to six games in the Ham Lake game (a Panther record) before not hitting one against Bloomington. His 12-game hitting streak also ended against Bloomington, as did Brian Dorr’s 11-game streak . . . The over-40 duo of Chad Campbell (42) and Dorr (43), who had both homered in the same game a number of times in their 20 years with the Panthers, came close again in the Rum River game, Dorr hitting a grand-slam and Campbell hitting the left field wall with a double. It was Dorr’s seventh grand-slam for the Panthers. The team had five homers in the three tournament games . . .   Maros, who is the only  player to play in all 17 games,  leads unofficial RBI stats with 19, Dorr has 17, Tyler Roehl 16 and Jesse Zimmer 12 . . . Top average hitters, through June 28, are Dorr (.365), Maros (.364), Tyler Bialucha (.355), Zimmer (.333), Ryan Carling (.328) and Chad Carling (.324). The team is hitting .281 . . . Josh Ludwig leads the ERA stats with 2.83 and is 2-0, while Joe Swanson is 3.04 and 3-0. The team ERA is 4.75.

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