The Starbuck Stars amateur baseball team improved to 6-5 for the season with a 2-1 win over Paynesville, Sunday, June 16.

The Stars also hosted Norway Lake-Sunburg, Friday, and played at Willmar, Sunday.  No information was received on the NL-Sunburg game, but the Stars did fall to the Willmar Rails, 6-5.

A recap of the NL-Sunburg game will appear next week.  

Against Willmar, the Stars fell behind 5-0 through three innings before tying it up two innings later.  Willmar got the gamewinner in the bottom half of the fifth.

Mitch Gruber went 2-for-5 for the Stars against Willmar with an RBI, while Aaron Ver Steeg was 2-for-4 with a double and two runs and Nick Lavasseur was 2-for-4 with a run.

In addition, Darion Alexander, Jackson Hendrickson, Austin Friese and Mike Andreas also had hits with Andreas also scoring once and adding three RBI.

The pace of the schedule picks up this week as the Stars are set to play three games.  Starbuck is set to host Raymond, Wednesday, June 26 before playing at Elrosa, Friday, and at New London-Spicer, Sunday.  The Stars, who are 5-2 in league play, are set to close out the County Line schedule with a game at Regal, Sunday, July 7 followed by the County Line League playoff openers, July 13-14.

Stars 2, Paynesville 1

The Stars scored a run in the ninth inning to earn a 2-1 victory at Paynesville last Sunday afternoon.

Austin Ver Steeg had three hits and also earned the pitching victory in relief of Nick Lavasseur.  Jackson Hendrickson and Matt Gruber added two hits each for the Stars, who improved to 5-2 in the County Line League.

Lavasseur gave up an unearned run in the third inning, while Ver Steeg scattered four hits over five innings while striking out three. Darion Alexander, Austin Friese and Mitch Gruber also had hits for the Stars.

Stars 2, at Paynesville 1 

Paynesville 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 — 1 9 1

Stars (6-5) 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 — 2 10 1

HITTING:  STAR-Austin Ver Steeg 3-for-5, run; M. Gruber 2-for-3, 2 bb, sb; Jackson Hendrickson 2-for-4, RBI; Darion Alexander 1-for-4, RBI, bb; Austin Friese 1-for-3, run, hbp; M. Gruber 1-for-4;    . . . PAY-D. Tangen 3-for-4, 1 run; A. Bullard 2-for-4; G. Fuchs 2-for-5

PITCH:  STAR-Nick Lavasseur 4-5-1-0-1-3; Austin Ver Steeg (W, 2-1)  5-4-0-0-0-3 . . . PAY-Vagle 6-6-1-1-3-5; L. Johnson (L)  3-4-1-1-1-2