The Athletics were couple of close plays away from a win in a 3-2 loss to Owatonna in an amateur baseball game at Riverland Wednesday night.

The Aces scored the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth when Austin’s catcher Derek Emanual just missed a tag on an Aces runner after taking a throw from right fielder Brendan McCabe on a single. The Aces scored the run with two outs.

In the bottom of the ninth, Josh Evans almost beat out a two-out high chopper to score a run for the Athletics (1-5 overall), but he was called out on a very close play. Austin left two runners on in the ninth.

“I’m not blaming anything on the umpires,” Athletics manager Marty Dick said. “We had our chances in the early innings we had runners on and didn’t take advantages of the opportunities that we had.”

In all, the Athletics out-hit the aces 11 to 3, while stranding runners in scoring position in the fifth and sixth innings.

Owatonna took a 2-0 lead in the first inning, but the Athletics tied it up when Elliot Herdina stole second, advanced to third on an error and scored on a two-out single by Evans in the seventh inning.

“What really intrigues me is these kids can run,” Dick said of his team’s speed. “We can bunt and we can steal and move runners. I had lot of fun coaching tonight.”

Kody Retterath gave the Athletics their first run with an RBI-single in the sixth inning. The sixth could’ve been a much bigger inning for the Athletics, but Evans, who finished 3-of-4, was picked off at second after a leadoff double. Still, the Athletics had runners on first and second with one out, but Emanual struck out and Tom Kramer grounded out to end the inning.

It was the first night that Southland’s Emanual, Retterath, and Brian Voigt played with the Athletics this year.

“This is the first night that the Southland, Blooming and Hayfield kids all played together but it’s still baseball. You pitch and you hit,” Dick said. “I think we’re gonna see a pretty good summer when we get these kids playing together and we should have a pretty good shot at getting to the state tournament.”

Garret Follmuth of St. Ansgar, Iowa pitched the first four innings and Evans pitched the last five for the A’s.

“Our pitching did fine tonight. We got five good innings out of Garrett Follmuth and four more out of Josh Evans. We couldn’t ask for anything more out of those two,” Dick said.

The A’s saved a run in the fourth inning when Retterath threw out Owatonna’s Benji Hager at home plate after an Austin error.

The A’s will play in the Green Isle Tournament this weekend.

Aces 3, Athletics 2

A’s pitching: Garrett Follmuth, 5 IP, 1 H, 3 BB, 2 R, 1 ER, 4 K; Josh Evans (L), 4 IP, 2 H, 4 BB, 3 K

A’s hitting: Darin Wagner, 2-of-5; Elliot Herdina, 1-of-4, SB, R; Brian Voigt, 0-of-5; Josh Evans, 3-of-4, double, RBI, BB; Brendan McCabe, 2-of-3, BB; MacEagon Voyce, 1-of-3; Kody Retterath, 1-of-4, RBI; Derek Emanual, 0-of-4; Tom Kramer, 1-of-3; Winston Smith, 0-of-1

Aces pitching: Derek Eddie (W), 9 IP, 11 H, 2 BB, 2 ER, 10 K

Aces hitting: Wilson, 1-of-3, RBI; Eddie, 0-of-3; Simon, 0-of-4; Schmidt, 0-of-1, 3 BBs; Uhere, 1-of-4, double, 2 RBIs; Hager, 1-of-4; Jones, 0-of-3; Schroeder, 0-of-4; Seller, 1-of-4