NEW RICHMOND — The Bay City Bombers struggled early on Friday night against a New Richmond Millers team in the top half of the St. Croix Valley League. The Millers doubled in a run in the first, tacking on two more in the third and two in the fourth for a 5-0 lead.

At the plate, the Bombers had popped out in five of the first six plate appearances. The Bombers did load the bases with two outs in the fourth inning on a couple of walks and a hit-by-pitch, but a flyout ended the inning.

The Bombers finally struck gold in the top of the seventh. Jorgen Ulvenes picked up a one-out single to left, followed by an infield hit from Luke Fleming and a base hit from Jamie Resendez loaded the bases. A fly out had the Millers one out away from a potential escape before Ulvenes scored on a passed ball. Caleb Boelter walked to reload the bases, and Fleming also came around to score on a passed ball. With runners on first and second, slugger Anthony Madsen ripped a base hit to cut the New Richmond lead to 5-4 at the seventh inning stretch.

Max Langer led off the eighth with a double right down the left field line. After falling behind in the count, Resendez swung and missed a dropped third strike, and the New Richmond first baseman could not handle the throw from the catcher, scoring Langer to tie it.

In the ninth, Boelter led off with a walk, followed by a Madsen walk and a sacrifice bunt from Wyley Myers to advance the runners. Thate Peterson was intentionally walked to load the bases, and a wild pitch brought in the lead run. Ulvenes then smoked a double to the opposite field over the head of the right fielder to bring in two runs for an 8-5 win.

“We had a couple bloop hits that started getting our energy up,” Fleming said after his two-hit night. “We built off of that. Pitching came in and did their job.”

It was Carsten Meyer who came in to pitch in relief for starter Logan Vogel, and he was all the team could have asked for, slamming the door with three shutout innings.

“He came in and shut them down the rest of the way. He only gave up a few hits. He threw strikes, that’s what we’ve been asking him to do all year,” Peterson said. “He knows he’s not going to blow by anybody, but fill up the zone and make them hit it.”

On the defensive side of the ball, the pitchers started attacking the zone and the defense backed them, marking the biggest difference from the early innings. Boelter said it was Peterson’s leadership as a player/manager that sparked them.

“I think that’s a question for Thate, because Thate was going nuts the first five innings,” Boelter joked. “They had like 10 hits through the first five [innings] and had one after that.”

“Just maybe getting on the guys too much,” Peterson said of what sparked the dugout. “We were definitely due… It was coming, we knew it was. Threw a few guys in there to mix it up, and it seemed to obviously work.”

Prior to a Sunday loss to the Ellsworth Hubbers, the Bombers had won four of their last six league games to climb to 5-9 in league play after a slow start to the year.

“Still always in the game,” Boelter said. “Had really no life the first five innings and then started to come around, scored eight runs the last three innings. Always in it even if it doesn’t look like it to start.”

Bay City had double-digit hits, a recipe for wins come postseason time.

“It takes the whole team. Bottom of the order was getting the hits, they were getting on,” Peterson said. “Picking each other up is the biggest thing. We’ve just got to believe a little bit more. We’ll get there.”