Southeast of Saline baseball coach Mike Garretson said “baseball is a funny game, sometimes you need 10 runs to win a game other times you need two”. Southeast did that very thing, winning in a 2-0 over Lyons Lions in first round 3A Regional Baseball action at Dean Evans Stadium in Salina, behind a phenomenal pitching performance by sophomore Cole Sauber and equally solid defensive performance.

“I felt comfortable out there on the mound, its easy when you know who have a good defense behind you,” Sauber said.

The good defense included three diving stops by sophomore third baseman Connor Boyer,  junior left fielder Camden Garretson chasing down a long foul ball for an out, and junior right fielder Keenan Breen throwing out Alan Pina at first taking the Lions run off the board.  All helped Sauber (4-0) en route to allowing only one hit and and no runs through five innings of work.

“We were fantastic in the field today, pretty solid,” Garretson said.

Offensively the Trojans had their problems spacing out just four hits and their first run coming in the fourth inning when Breen stole second, third, and eventually marched onward to home on two overthrows.

“We hit the ball hard today, just to high the balls weren’t carrying,” Garretson said.

The Trojans bats came to life in the bottom half of the fourth inning.  After the first two batters seniors Clayton Kuhn and Michael Swanson flew out, sophomore Dane Long would walk and steal to get into scoring position.  Garretson, fresh off a great catch the inning before, belted a shot up the middle scoring Long and then advancing to second.  That would be it for the inning, but it juiced up the defense who came back out and would knock the Lions out in order the next three innings.

With the win, Southeast (14-5) will advance to the second round game Wednesday May, 16 at 4 p.m.