By Chad Koenen

Publisher

Competing in their first state tournament in five years, the New York Mills Millers ran into a buzz saw on Saturday afternoon as they fell to the Cold Spring Rockies by a score of 20-4. 

The Rockies opened the scoring with 3 runs in the top of the first inning. The Millers answered with 1 run of their own in the bottom of the first inning when Brandon Kupfer hit an RBI double to bring Derin Gaudette across the plate.

The Rockies scored another run in the second inning, before breaking the game open with a 7 run top of the third inning to take an 11-1 lead. Not wanting to go down without a fight the Millers scored 3 runs in the bottom half of the third inning when Logan Small led off the inning with a single. He advanced to third base on a Jacob Guck double, before Jonah Johnson hit an RBI single to bring Guck across the plate. Gaudette followed with the fourth straight hit of the inning, this time a triple, to bring Guck and Johnson across the plate to cut Cold Spring’s lead to 11-4 with no outs in the bottom of the third inning. Unfortunately, the next three hitters went down in order and the Millers were not be able to score another run in the game. 

Cold Spring added 1 run in the fifth inning, 6 runs in the sixth inning and 2 runs in the seventh inning to come away with a 20-4 win over the Millers. 

Gaudette led the way offensively with 3 hits and 2 RBIs, while Small finished with a pair of hits. Gaudette took the loss on the mound as he went 2 1/3 innings and gave up 7 hits and 7 runs, 4 of them were earned, while striking out 3 hitters. 

The Millers end their season with a record of 23-6. 

The Bluffton Braves will open their state tournament when they play the Hutchinson Huskies on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. in Faribault. The Huskies defeated the Kimball Express by a score of 12-2 in the first round of the state tournament. The winner of that game will take on either the Ada Athletics or Jordan Brewers on Saturday, Sept. 3 at 11 a.m. in Dundas.