By Allison Roorda
Community Post
Minster celebrated their sectional win on Thursday night against New Knoxville with pitcher Allan Heitbrink's first career no-hitter.

“We host this tournament,” said Minster coach Mike Wiss, “and your goal when you host a sectional is to get off of your field to go to the next round. And that's where everyone's at; that's what everyone wants to do right now.”
The first inning opened with the New Knoxville Rangers going up and down in order before Minster took to the plate. Ranger pitcher Caleb Allen walked Robert Gruber to start. Gruber advanced on Brian Mueller's out, and Andrew Baumer hit a fly ball to left field to close the inning with no runs on one hit with one man left on base. The Rangers failed to get on base in the second inning, and the Wildcats took over. Austin Baumer singled after two forced outs. Sam Otting walked to first, but Bryan Phlipot flied out to end the inning with still no score on either side.
“Caleb Allen is a good pitcher,” Wiss remarked of the Rangers. “St. Henry found that out. And then we come up there with his left-handed throw versus our six left-handed batters. So, we really tried to focus on seeing the ball from the left-handed side of the plate because there's a teams that have left-handed pitchers, it seems, when Minster plays.”
The Wildcats scored in the bottom of the third inning. Gruber singled to open Minster's at-bat, and Mueller hit a sacrifice bunt to move Gruber to second. Austin Baumer hit a single RBI for Gruber. Austin Baumer stole second next, and Vince Fullenkamp hit a double RBI to bring Austin Baumer home. Jack Griner walked to first as Fullenkamp stole third. Aaron Heitbrink walked for bases loaded, but a fly out changed the inning with a score of 2-0 for Minster.
“Our goal coming in was to win the first three innings,” explained Wiss. “And we scored two in the bottom of the third. Once we got Al a lead, it just made everybody relax.”
Neither team earned any hits or runs in the fourth inning, and the game progressed. A New Knoxville Ranger moved to first on a Minster error in the top of the fifth, but Allan Heitbrink struck out the next two Ranger hitters. In the bottom of the inning, Andrew Baumer singled and stole second. Griner hit a single RBI to bring Andrew Baumer home, and Alex Schmiesing came in as the pinch runner for Griner. Schmiesing stole second and advanced to third on Otting's single before a third out by the Rangers.
“We made the plays behind Allan,” Wiss said. “On a typical day for the last three years now, Allan is always around the strike zone. He doesn't give many walks. That's something that really got us in trouble this season, were walks, hit by pitches and errors. We recently put some of that stuff on the shelf a little bit, and we had some better pitched games inside the last two weeks.”
Allan Heitbrink struck out two more Rangers in the sixth and forced another out before he reached first base. As the Wildcats took the plate, Phlipot singled, as did Gruber. Fullenkamp hit a sacrifice bunt to advance the runners to second and third. Aaron Heitbrink flied out but Phlipot stole home on a Ranger error. Andrew Baumer walked next, and Gruber got out trying to steal home, leaving the score at 4-0 for Minster.
The Rangers went up and down in order in the top of the seventh, unable to respond to Minster's lead. The victory advanced Minster to the Coldwater district next Wednesday, May 21, with an overall record of 16-10 and a league record of 6-3. But Wiss had good things to say about the young New Knoxville team.
“In two years, when we're playing New Knoxville again, I will have a brand new team of kids out here and all of their kids will still be playing,” said Wiss. “They got good kids, and they're learning when they're young. Coach es they're doing good things with that group, and those that hang in there, that's going to be a nice group of baseball players in a couple years.”