By Robert Whitmire

The SPASH baseball team picked up a Wisconsin Valley Conference win over Merrill 3-2 at Bukolt Park Tuesday afternoon.

The win improves the Panther record to 3-1 in conference play.

The Panthers found themselves down 2-0 heading into the bottom of the third inning. With runners on first and second base, Gus Turner-Zick belted a hard ground ball to the left of second base that was mishandled by the Merrill Shortstop.

The error allowed Brady Franz to score from second and put the Panthers on the board. Brady Woyak hit a long sacrifice fly to bring home Joe Strigel and tie the score at two apiece.

SPASH put the game away in the bottom of the sixth inning when runners at first and second advanced on a passed ball with one out and Tyler Frafjord coming to the plate. Frafjord hit a Sacrifice Fly to deep right field scoring Strigel from third and putting the Panthers up by one.

Dylan Trigg was the starting pitcher for SPASH. Trigg pitched four innings, walked two and struck out five. Legend Kieliszewski came on in relief and allowed two hits, no runs, no walks, and struck out three to pick up the win.

Merrill finished the game with two runs on five hits and two errors while SPASH put up three runs on three hits and committed three errors.

The Blue Jays drop to 2-6 in conference play with the loss and will host SPASH in a 5:00 PM tilt on Thursday. SPASH travels to Wausau West Wednesday for a game with the league leading Warriors. First pitch is scheduled for 5 PM.

The time of the game was one hour and 52 minutes.