MILBANK – Winner-Colome kept the Groton offense in check during the opening round of the State B Baseball Tournament on Friday.

A pair of Winner-Colome pitchers scattered four hits over seven innings on the way to a 5-0 victory.

Although Groton was kept off the scoreboard, coach Seth Erickson was pleased with his team’s performance.

“It’s not that we played bad. We only struck out twice. We put the ball in play, it just seemed like we were hitting it exactly where they were the whole game,” Erickson said. “All in all, I thought we played pretty well. That one inning in the second inning kind of got us out of rhythm a little bit.”

Winner-Colome put up three of its five runs in the second inning, and two of those runs were unearned as Groton committed a pair of errors after two outs.

“Those two errors we made in the second today really kind of blew things open for them,” Erickson said.

Groton struggled to get runners into scoring position, as only one runner reached second base during the contest.

“They had a really good catcher. We tried stealing a couple times and kind of gunned us out, so it was kind of going base to base for us,” said Erickson. “We didn’t really hit anything in the gap. Like I said, we hit the ball hard, it just seemed to be right at them the whole time, so it was hard to move up on the bases.”

Teylor Diegel got on base all three at-bats as he singled twice and walked once. He accounted for half of Groton’s hits.

“It’s always nice when you get your lead-off on and he’s been doing that all year for us. He’s got a ton of speed and typically when he gets on first or second, you think he’s gonna score, and it just kind of brings the energy up for the team,” Erickson said. “They know he can score on a single pretty much anywhere. So yeah, he played well. He ran out one that most guys would’ve been thrown out, but he’s so fast he got down the line and beat it there.”

Nick Morris started on the bump for Groton throwing all seven innings, giving up just five hits and three earned runs. He used an unorthodox approach to find success on the hill.

“That was how Nick has been the whole year for us. He threw really well. Kept them off balance. He does a really good job of mixing his pitches up, not throwing the expected pitch,” said Erickson. “Like on a 2-0 count, most hitters are thinking fastball down the middle. He might throw his knuckleball or he might throw his curveball. You just never know and he can throw all of those for a strike.”

Groton is now in the same spot it was a year ago and will look to bounce back just like last year.

“Similar to last year, we lost round one and came back and won the second game in the morning, and we’re gonna try to do that again,” Erickson said. “They know it’s a long tournament and one game doesn’t make a difference. Losing that first game, it is hard. You gotta win a lot of games in a row to get through it.”

Erickson believes the team has the pitching depth to be able to do that.

“We’ve got the pitching to do it. We’ve got enough guys that can get up there and throw,” said Erickson. “It’s just a matter of putting a whole game together.”

Winner-Colome 031 010 0 – 5 5 0

Groton 000 000 0 – 0 4 2

Dylan Brandis, Isiah Olson (6) and Quincy Phillips; Nick Morris and Karsten Fliehs.