COON RAPIDS — The Ridgewater College baseball team got back on the field for the first time in nearly a month Sunday.
The Warriors, who last played March 27, split a Minnesota College Athletic Conference doubleheader with Anoka-Ramsey Community College.
The Golden Rams (1-1 MCAC, 4-16 overall) won the first game 4-1 and Ridgewater (1-1, 4-8) took the second 6-1 at Wintercrest Park.
It was the first action for Ridgewater since dropping a pair of games to Gustavus Adolphus College’s junior varsity in St. Peter. Since then, the Warriors have had 10 games either postponed or canceled.
Josh Stoll got the win for Anoka-Ramsey on the mound in Game 1. The 6-foot-3 sophomore right-hander went six innings, allowing one run.
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Ridgewater had six hits, including an RBI single by Bennett Knapper in the first inning that drove in Josh Robb, who doubled. Knapper is a sophomore from Yellow Medicine East. Robb is a sophomore from St. Peter.
Reece Schwirtz, a sophomore right-hander from Glencoe-Silver Lake, went five innings and took the loss for the Warriors.
“That first guy, Stoll, take nothing away from him, but you could tell we hadn’t seen anything live in a month,” Ridgewater head coach Tyler Hebrink said.
In Game 2, Knapper dominated, giving up one run and striking out six in six innings. Zeke Walton, the sophomore from BOLD, tossed a scoreless seventh inning.
Schwirtz drove in two runs and the Warriors stole six bases to earn their first MCAC win of the season.
Ridgewater next plays a doubleheader with Alexandria Technical & Community College beginning at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Orange Field in the Bill Taunton Stadium complex in Willmar.
It’ll be a reunion for Hebrink and Alexandria head coach Jason Fischer. The two coached together at St. Cloud Technical & Community College. Hebrink was Fischer’s assistant.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Hebrink said. “I had such a good time working with him when we were in St. Cloud.”
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Hebrink left after the 2019 season to become the head coach at Ridgewater. Fischer left St. Cloud to start the program at Alexandria.
“I still talk to him four or five times a week,” Hebrink said.
Hebrink said his starters for the doubleheader will be sophomore Jack Howard of Renville County West and and freshman Sam Etterman of Willmar. Both are right-handers.
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