Game Recap - Princeton Panthers Maul River Bandits, 13-0

When I stated earlier this week that Princeton (13-3, 16-4) could hit the ball....I guess that was an understatement. The St. Croix River Bandits (4-11, 6-15) were manhandled 13-0 on Thursday night. As starting pitcher Brandon Pederson said, "anything I threw down the heart of the plate was just crushed." The Panthers were able to knock out eleven hits in six innings of batting, which included 2 home runs, 3 doubles, and a multitude of singles and hard hit outs. When the dust had settled Princeton had scored thirteen runs and the River Bandits struggled at the plate, recording only two hits (by Jordan Martell and Jesse Hartel).

Princeton's coach Jules Zimmer said, "our number 3 and 4 hitters are very tough outs, they both played D1 collegiate baseball, and could be playing even farther along if not for some bad timing with injuries." Jesse Zimmer and Tony Stay looked in mighty fine shape to the Bandits, going 4-7 and a walk combined and scoring 5 runs with 6 RBI.

The Panthers have won 10 straight, including victories over top league teams such as Chisago, Isanti and Mora. The last loss the Panthers suffered was back on June 5th to Hinckley in an 8-9 loss; where Hinckley scored 2 runs in the top of the ninth to take the lead.

Not much info for the Bandits, except (not to jinx anything) they have been playing some exceptional defense as of late. Once again they commited no errors for the second straight game and only have 1 error in their last 5 games. Pretty good turn-around for a team that had 56 errors in the first 14 games.

*Other Notes

*Bandits Boxscore click HERE

*Curtis Roebuck threw an inning of relief and did not give up a home run

*Missing in action on Thursday was Mitch Thompson (playing in a legion all star game) Mike Leahy, Sean Weinberg, and Nick Hartman

*Princeton has one of the nicer fields in the league