Third-most wins for Spring Grove baseball

The 2023 Spring Grove baseball team enjoyed a fifth straight winning season and second straight third-place finish in the Southeast Conference behind two state-ranked teams. The Lions were able to open the playoffs with a home game for the fifth straight season. Seeded eighth among 14 section teams, The Lions won two and lost two in postseason play to finish at 12-9, the third-most wins in program history.

Current head coach Chris Strinmoen was directly involved in each of the four seasons with the most wins. He was the repeat Most Valuable Player when Spring Grove posted 14 wins (14-7) in 1996 and was the head coach when the Lions won a record 16 games (16-8) in 2019, won 12 games (12-9) in 2023 and won 11 times (11-8) in 2022.

For the third straight year, the Lions received the state’s Gold Award for academics, this year one of only six teams in Class A to achieve so well academically.

Six of the nine losses came against state-ranked teams, including three setbacks against state-runner-up Lyle/Pacelli. Most impressive was the 6-4 win over state-ranked Fillmore Central/Lanesboro. Two scheduled non-conference games were canceled and not made up.

“I feel like this year was a tale of three seasons,”: said Strinmoen. “We started the year off with some unbelievable pitching – on track to be one of the best, if not the best of all time in Spring Grove. We were happy with the offensive output, but we were a little shaky out of the gate defensively.

“As we worked hard on our defense, made some adjustments and shored that up a bit, the offense went into a massive slump. The seven games before our big win against Fillmore (Fillmore Central/Lanesboro), our five-through-nine hitters went 5 for 84 – .060 batting average. Pitchers did everything they could to keep us in games, but we lost 5 of 7, in many tight games.

“After our big win against Fillmore, the offense seemed to wake up again. Defense had been stable, and we were ready for a big playoff run. Little did I know our pitching would then hit rock bottom in Austin (section playoffs). During our 18 innings in Austin, we walked 29 batters and hit 15 of them – 44 free bases over the course of those three games, and we actually won one of those games, again due to some clutch hitting.

“It makes me wonder what may have been had we been able to get all three phases of our game to cooperate at the same time. But that’s sports and that’s baseball. And it gives us motivation to keep working at it to see if we can get all three put together for another run next year.”

It was a solid third-place in the seven-team SEC, three games ahead of fourth-place Mabel-Canton and three games behind co-champions Lyle/Pacelli and Southland. In the last six seasons of conference action, the Lions have finished in third place four times. A conference title continues to be elusive. Spring Grove has won a postseason championship (2019 sub-section) since the last conference crown (1989 co-champion).

There were 10 games decided by two runs or fewer; the Lions went 4-6 in those tight fits. There was a frustrating stretch of three straight one-run, non-conference losses. Grove won three of the four blowouts decided by double-digit margins.

The 12-9 record was similar to the previous season’s 11-8 mark. Both Spring Grove and the opposition scored fewer runs than they did the previous season. The Lions averaged 6.5 runs per game, while limiting the opponents to 5.0. There were no shutout victories, but there were two shutout losses, one each to the conference co-champions.

Again, two Lions batted over .400 (Jaxon Strinmoen, Elijah Solum) but unlike last year, two others surpassed .300 (Ezra Griffin, Caleb Griffin). Nevertheless, the team batting average slipped from .288 to .252. It did not help that Elijah Solum, batting .412, missed the last half of the season with an injury. Despite the Lions’ lower team batting average, there were three over-the-fence homeruns after two seasons without a round-tripper.

But opposing batters experienced the same slippage. They batted only .181 against Spring Grove pitchers, the weakest hitting for opponents in the seven seasons since Spring Grove revived the stand-alone baseball program in 2016. Spring Grove pitchers posted an improved and strong earned run average of 3.15, the fourth-best in program history! The anomaly was the extraordinary number of opposing batters hit by pitches (45).

In the field, the Lion defense averaged 2.6 errors per game while the opposing fielders averaged 2.4 miscues per contest. Spring Grove had at least one error in each game, while both Southland and Kenyon-Wanamingo had an error-free game against the Lions.

Spring Grove was a highly experienced baseball team, which brought back almost all of the pitching staff and six of eight position starters. Four Lion letter winners picked up diplomas, including two of the three most-used pitchers, Caleb Griffin and Ty Cleven. Rebuilding the pitching corps and better batting will be paramount as there should again be plenty of veterans defending in the field. Eight Lions with starting experience retain eligibility for 2024 (three juniors, all five sophomores). The B-team went 6-5-4 and the junior high 3-13.

Spring Grove Baseball 2023 (SEC games in bold)
>>12-9 (8-4 SEC, 3rd place)
W at GMLOK 15-4
W vs. Houston 10-2
L at Southland 4-5
W vs. Alden-Conger/Glenville-Emmons 14-4
W vs. GMLOK 6-2
L at Lyle/Pacelli 1-3
W vs. Mabel-Canton 7-6
W at Mabel-Canton 12-5
L vs. Lyle/Pacelli 0-7
W vs. Wabasha-Kellogg 7-3
W at Houston 4-1
L vs. Goodhue (R-P Tourney) 2-3
L vs. Rushford-Peterson (R-P Tourney) 5-6
L vs. Kenyon-Wanamingo 1-2
L vs. Southland 0-5
W vs. Fillmore Central/Lanesboro 6-4
W at Alden-Conger/Glenville-Emmons 12-2
SECTION 1A TOURNAMENT
W vs. #9 Wabasha-Kellogg 7-6
L vs. #1 Lyle/Pacelli 8-21
W vs. #12 Mabel-Canton 7-5
L vs. #6 Hayfield 8-10

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B-Team Baseball
>>6 wins, 5 losses, 4 ties
L at Caledonia 4-14
T at GMLOK 3-3
L vs. Houston 3-6
T at Southland 0-0
W vs. Houston 8-5
W vs. GMLOK 4-2
L at Lyle/Pacelli 4-7
W vs. Mabel-Canton 4-2
W at Mabel-Canton 9-0
T vs. Lyle/Pacelli 10-10
L at Houston 1-6
L at La Crescent-Hokah 5-7
W vs. Kenyon-Wanamingo 6-5
T vs. Southland 2-2
W vs. Fillmore Central/Lanesboro 7-6

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Junior High Baseball
>>3 wins, 13 losses
L vs. Mabel-Canton
L vs. Mabel-Canton
L vs. GMLOK
W vs. GMLOK
L vs. Houston
L vs. Houston
W vs. GMLOK
W vs. GMLOK
L at Mabel-Canton
L at Mabel-Canton
L vs. Houston
L vs. Houston
L at Houston
L at Houston
L at Fillmore Central/Lanesboro
L at Fillmore Central/Lanesboro