ADAMS —Southland senior Jordan Heimer came through on defense and at the plate as the Rebels beat Dover-Eyota (0-1 overall, 0-1 Three Rivers) 2-1 in Adams Tuesday.

Heimer came up with a game-winning, two-out RBI single in the bottom of the seventh. Heimer’s hit was huge, but he actually made the biggest play of the game in the fifth inning, when the Eagles had the bases loaded with one out. DE’s Luke Franke popped the ball up in foul territory and Heimer made the catch facing away from home plate, he turned around and fired to home plate, where he turned an inning ending and rally ending double play.

“I heard coach Kody [Retterath] telling me to drop it and I knew if I didn’t make a good throw on it, he was going to chew me out so I made sure to get a good throw on it,” Heimer said. “You’ve always got to know what you’re going to do before you do it.”

Defense has been the key to Southland’s first two games this season as they have committed just one error in 14 innings of baseball. The Rebels (2-0 overall, 2-0 Three Rivers) have been outside just three times this season.

“For the second game in a row we played fairly good defense and for the most part James [Landherr] threw strikes,” Southland head coach Scott Retterath said. “He got in trouble that one inning but Jordan kind of bailed him out with the double play. We’re in the learning phase because pretty much basically our whole team is new other than a handful of guys who played last year. We’ll play it game by game and hopefully we’ll get a little better each game.”

Landherr went all seven innings and he allowed just two hits while striking out five. He said the Rebels are hoping to get their offense going as the season goes on.

“We need to put more runs on the board,” he said. “When it’s that close it’s a little hard on the heart. But it’s only our third day outside and we’ll get better.”

Heimer also knocked in Southland’s first run of the game in the first inning. Heimer’s game-winning hit was set up when Jared Landherr came up with a two-out single and stole second base. Jared advanced to third base when Southland’s Josh Anderson reached on an error.

Heimer was more than happy to have a chance to drive in the big hit.

“Any time you get an opportunity to get your team runs, you want to do it,” Heimer said. “The crowd was behind us and that made it good.”

DE 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 — 1 2 3

Southland 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 — 2 5 1

Southland pitching: James Landherr (W) 7 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 1 ER, 5 K, 1 HBP

Southland hitting: Jared Landherr, 1-for-3, 2 SB, BB; Chris Webber, 1-for-4; Jordan Heimer, 2-for-4, 2 RBIs; Josh Anderson, 1-for-2, BB; Bret Matthews, 0-for-3; Jared Landherr, 1-for-3; Lucas Mandt, 0-for-3; Nick Finbraaten, 0-for-2; Isaac Essinger, 0-for-3; Boyd Mortenson, 0-for-1