The Lakers dominated their first round game vs the Stark Longhorns with cluth hitting, great pitching and some timely good fortune, friday night in the 2012 Class C State Tournament held at Faber Field in St Cloud.

The second inning started with a Craig LaPlante walk but was forced out. Nick Litfin drilled his first of 3 singles going to 2nd on a bad throw and moving Eric Durkin from 1st to 3rd,  Ben Smothers hit a solid grounder to the Stark third baseman who rushed his throw for an error and allowed both runners to score.

Now up 2-0 in the 4th, Litfin again started the inning with his second single, moved to 2nd with a Justin Klingelhutz sacrifice bunt and scored from there on a Ronnie Olson single. Runs 4 and 5 came in the 6th inning again starting with a Litfin single, a Klingelhutz walk, a Smothers' sacrifice bunt, and another Ronnie Olson single.

At 5-0 in the 7th the Longhorns finally got on the board against Laker pitcher Chris Bullis, as they put up a double, walk, single, then a sacrifice fly.  But that was it.  Bullis scattered 6 hits and 1 walk to go along with his 9 strikeouts for the game.

The Lakers now move on to play again at Faber Field on Saturday August 25 at 11:30 am against the Morris Eagles, champions of Region 9C. If they pull out a win  they would play Saturday September 1 at 5 pm at Faber Field.