The Starbuck Stars won their fifth game in their last six tries and third-straight with a 3-0 victory at Atwater, Friday night.  The Stars are starting to hit their stride at the right time with the start of league playoffs less than four weeks away.

The Stars also lost a home game with Norway Lake-Sunburg, Sunday, but results of that game were received too late for this week’s deadline.

On tap this week for the Stars are home games Friday, June 23 against Breckenridge and Saturday, June 24 versus Kensington.

Stars 3, Atwater 0

The Stars improved to 6-4 overall with a 3-0 win at Atwater, Friday night.  Starbuck, which has won five of its last six games, scored single runs in the first, third and ninth innings and outhit the Chuckers 8-5 for the game.

Austin Versteeg improved to 2-2 for the season with the complete-game win.  He allowed five hits and struck out six for one of the top games by Starbuck pitchers this season.

Darion Alexander was 2-for-5 with a run and two stolen bases, while Matt Gruber was also 2-for-5 with a run and stolen base and Versteeg was 2-for-4 with two RBI, a stolen base and sacrifice fly.

Adding one hit each for the Stars were Jackson Hendrickson and Austin Friese, while Michael Gruber scored a run and had another stolen base for the Stars.

Versteeg’s sac fly scored Michal Gruber in the first inning, while Alexander came home on an errors in the third and Matt Gruber singled with two outs in the ninth,s tole second and came home on a single by Versteeg.

Josh Kingery took the loss for the Chuckers despite striking out 11, and he was also one of five Atwater players with one hit each.

Starbuck 3, at Atwater 0

Starbuck (6-4) 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 — 3 8 2

Atwater 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 0 5 2

HITTING:  STARS-Darion Alexander 2-for-5, 1 run, 2 sb; Matt Gruber 2-for-5, 1 run, sb; Austin Versteeg 2-for-4, 2 RBI, sb, sacfly; Jackson Hendrickson 1-for-3, bb; Austin Friese 1-for-3, double; Michael Gruber 1 run, sb;  . . . ATWATER-five with one hit each

PITCHING:  (ip-h-r-er-bb-so):  STARS-Austin Versteeg (W, 2-2)  9-5-0-0-0-6 . . .  ATWATER-Josh Kingery (L)  7-6-2-1-1-11; Kobe Holtz 2-2-1-1-1-2