July 29--WILMONT -- Twice, Nate Stoll turned the tide of Wednesday night's amateur baseball game -- once with his glove, and once with his bat.

His efforts kept Wilmont alive in the Gopher League baseball tournament.

Stoll made a diving catch in center field that resulted in a fourth-inning double play, and then drilled a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth to help the Cardinals squeak by Pipestone 5-4 in an elimination contest.

Wilmont (17-10) now faces Minneota on Friday in another do-or-die matchup, with the winner playing Luverne on Saturday for a trip to state.

With the game tied at 4 in the bottom of the ninth inning, Justin Saufley singled and Brandon Diekmann came on as a courtesy runner. The Cardinals bunted Diekmann over, then Stoll brought him home.

Saufley (2-for-4) had come on in relief of Adam Diekmann and earned the win, although Diekmann hurled 7 2-3 strong innings and only gave up one earned run.

"Adam threw a very good game," Rogers said. "Actually, only one of those four runs counted against him."

Half a dozen Cardinal errors helped bring Pipestone back into the ballgame, after Wilmont had built an early 3-0 lead.

Designated hitter Jay Scheidt scored in both the first and third innings for two of his three runs on the night, despite a sore right shoulder that kept him out of the field.

"He probably hurt it horsing around, you know," Rogers said with a laugh. "We just had him DH-ing tonight."

Both times, Scheidt reached home on a close call.

Josh Wasmund followed Scheidt's second score with an RBI single and Wilmont led by three.

Pipestone threatened with a man on in the top of the fourth inning, but Stoll sprawled out to make a diving grab in deep center field. He got back up at the fence and gunned to first in time for an inning-ending double play.

"Nate made a heck of a catch out there," Rogers said. "That was kind of a game-turner. If he misses that, it's a triple and an RBI easy."

Then, the errors came.

Pipestone put up two runs in both the fifth and seventh innings to tie the game.

Wilmont had a pair of errors in each of those innings -- part of an error-laden contest which had 12 fielding mishaps in all.

"We jumped out to a good start there, and that's when we had our errors," Rogers said. "We've got to improve on that a lot."

The Cardinals' first pitch against the Mudhens is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Wilmont.

R H E

Pipe. 000 020 200 -- 4 5 6

Wil. 102 000 101 -- 5 8 6

Luverne 9, Minneota 7

LUVERNE -- Top-seeded Luverne ended seventh-ranked Minneota's string of upsets and advanced to the finals of the Gopher League amateur baseball tourney.

The Redbirds (18-7) will play either Wilmont or Minneota Saturday in Luverne.

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