It was a pretty day with a not-so-pretty performance, but ended in a pretty good way for the Anoka-Ramsey baseball team at Wintercrest West.

Indeed, that is a mouthful of extraordinary contradictions that explained a doubleheader split with its opening MCAC Central Division opponent Minnesota State-Fergus Falls (M-State).

M-State won the first (scheduled 7-innings) game 2-1, while Anoka-Ramsey won the second (scheduled 9-innings) game 8-7 in 10 innings.

In the first game, then through the first six innings of the second game, Anoka-Ramsey did very little at the plate against M-State pitching. It managed just five hits and the single run (scored in the first inning) in the first game, then through six innings of the second game the team had eight hits in two runs. But the hits were more of the scratch and Texas League variety rather than actual smashes.

And, oh yes, 20 runners left on base — nine in scoring position.

Meantime in game two, Anoka-Ramsey's pitching was off its game, too. After a solid, four-hit, 10-strikeout first-game performance by Gabe Kastenmeier in the 2-1 defeat, back-to-back Anoka-Ramsey pitchers started out the second game by yielding nine walks and two hits that created a seemingly deep 6-2 hole.

Lefty Tanner Kinney came on with two out in the sixth to stem the tide and wound up finishing the game despite allowing M-State to score a seventh run for a 7-2 edge in the sixth inning. Making the big pitches when he had to make them, the wiry Kinney finished with eight strikeouts and gave up just five hits over the final eight-plus innings he was on the mound.

But that was before Anoka-Ramsey started to wake just in time to enjoy the latter half of this very nice day.

"For what we have proven to do in our first 17 games this spring, we did not do at the plate through the first 13 innings of this particular Saturday afternoon," said coach Tom Yelle. "Somehow, though, you just knew something was going to break."

Thus came the seventh inning. A walk to first baseman Brennan Beese and scratch single by Mike Zimbeck put runners on first and second for designated hitter Joe Daher, who drove home one run with a sharp single. Two batters later, shortstop Zack Waalen followed with another sharp hit that scored two runs and the five-run deficit to just two, 7-5.

Anoka-Ramsey added a single run on a Haven Williams single in the eighth to make it 7-6 and tied the game in the last of the ninth on a single by catcher Justin Reeves and a run-scoring double by center fielder Mylo Hommes.

The late beautification project by Anoka-Ramsey continued into the last of the 10th Williams collected his fourth single of the game with one out and was en rout to third base on a bloop single by second baseman Jared Vance. A relay throw from shallow right field to third subsequently went awry and Williams sprinted home with the game-ending, game-winning run.