MANKATO — Mankato East alum Travis Helling spent his high school days terrorizing pitchers at Wolverton Field.
Helling, now in his thirties, recalled his youth with a grand slam Wednesday to cap the Mankato Twins’ 11-7 amateur baseball win over St. James Wednesday at his old stomping grounds.
It was Helling’s first home run at Wolverton Field since he returned to organize baseball after an extended hiatus.
“It’s fun to come back home and play,” he said. “I’ve played quite a few games here and have a lot of good memories.”
Down 6-2 entering the bottom of the sixth inning, the Twins drew six walks (and two hit batsmen) off St. James reliever Brady Selnes. Mankato scored two runs before Selnes struck out Ben Kaus and got Zac Danelson to pop out.
After manager and second basemen Jay Nessler drew his second RBI walk of the game, Helling took Selnes’ 3-1 delivery and slugged it deep over the left field wall to give the Twins their first lead at 9-7.
“It felt good, but I thought I got it a little bit off the end,” Helling said. “I sat back on it and good things happened. It got out, I guess.”
And not a moment too soon, Nessler said.
“It was huge,” he said. “It was perfect time for it, after giving up five runs in the second. That’s happened to us all season, and we haven’t bounced back.”
Helling said the Twins were due for a big inning.
“It doesn’t feel like we’ve been getting the breaks all year long,” he said. “It was fun to have an inning like that. We’d been hitting the ball hard all game, and that’s what it takes sometimes.”
Led by Shea Roehrkasse’s three-run blast in the second inning, St. James mounted an early 5-0 lead off Twins starter Dane Secott.
The Twins trimmed the deficit to 5-2 in the third, but were mostly held in check by St. James starting pitcher David Krause, who pitched five innings to post a no-decision.
Joe Kern relieved Secott in the fourth and allowed one run in five innings to notch the victory. Helling pitched a scoreless inning of relief in the eighth, and Kaus allowed one run in the ninth to earn the save.
“Joe came in and did a great job for us,” Nessler said. “He kept us in there, and it was good to get Benny in there for an inning.”
With six games left in the regular season, the Twins are hoping the seven-run sixth inning woke their offense up.
“We need to be more consistent,” Helling said. “We’ve got to start hitting the ball better. We can’t wait around for things like tonight to happen.”
Mankato (7-4) plays Saturday at Belle Plaine. St. James (6-6) plays Thursday at Sleepy Eye.
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Veteran Travis Helling hit a sixth-inning grand slam Wednesday to rally the Mankato Twins to an 11-7 Matt Johnston
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