In a pair of games that stretched more than five hours, spanned 13 innings, featured more than 30 combined hits, 12 walks, 10 steals, six different pitchers, five errors, four passed balls, three wild pitches and two hit-batsmen, the Owatonna-Rochester John Marshall doubleheader at Dartts Park on Saturday had a little bit of everything.

There were long stretches of perfect pitching, an entire game of flawless defense and plenty of offense to go around.

There were bunt singles that rolled no more than 30 feet and a three-run home run that soared over the fence in left field. There were ringing doubles, seeing-eye singles, 300-foot foul balls that led to strikeouts and rallies that started without swinging the bat .

Neither team committed an error in Game 1 and combined for six defensive miscues in the nightcap. There were difficult plays made to look routine, and routine plays made to look far too difficult.

At one point, a close game transformed into a blowout, and a blowout transformed into a close game. And then back again.

Luckily for the Huskies, the points that were up for grabs on Saturday weren’t going to be awarded for style and finesse. No, they earned those by winning.

And that’s exactly what they did.

In an ultra-condensed schedule that has already burned through 20% of its entire slate in just six days, Owatonna secured itself a pair of valuable wins against a Section 1-AAAA and Big Nine Conference opponent less than 20 hours after beating Rochester Mayo on the road on Friday night.

The sweep allowed the Huskies to keep pace with the early leaders in the annual sprint for the conference championship and further distances themselves from a bizarre season-opening loss to Austin that where Owatonna drew 16 walks and left 15 runners on base.

And now, thanks to a newly-implemented “hockey style” points system to determine the conference champion, every league contest will influence the standings. The new formula is actually pretty simple: If two teams play twice during the season, each win is worth one point. If they meet once, a win is worth two points. It’s not perfect, but is definitely a step in the right direction and much more practical solution than the old format.

For instance, had the Huskies and Rockets met just 365 days ago for a double-header, only Game 1 would have counted toward the league standings while the nightcap would have been designated a “nonconference” contest, even though both teams, obviously, reside in the same league.

THE OFFENSE

There was a lot of baseball to digest on Saturday and, honestly, there wasn’t a single phase that Owatonna didn’t flash at least some level of high-end potential. The Huskies were just a little more consistent in some areas than others.

Ultimately, it was the offense that shined the brightest against the Rockets, posting nine runs in each game, combining for 24 hits and scoring at least one run in nine different innings.

Based upon what I already know about the current crop of players and amplified by what I witnessed over the weekend, this could be one of the top five lineups Tate Cummins has ever offered in in his 17 years at the helm. There’s still a long way to go, but Owatonna is averaging a conference-best 8.8 runs per game and hasn’t scored fewer than six in any single contest.

I mean, when you have a former all-conference player, Owen Beyer, anchoring the bottom of the lineup and can surround the best pure hitter in the league, Mitch Seykora, with an ultra-talented crop of newcomers while mixing in a few key seniors, you have the potential to make some serious noise.

New leadoff batter, Nathan Theis, and No. 3 hitter, Tayte Berge, are both juniors and have acquainted themselves quite nicely to the varsity level thus far. Theis racked up three hits in the opener against the Rockets while Berge reached base four times in the nightcap. Neither, struck out in eight combined plate appearances.

As for Seykora and Beyer, the duo combined for five basehits and complemented each other nicely in the No. 2 and No. 9 spots, respectively.

Seykora already appears to be swinging in midseason form and hit the ball hard in both games, finishing a combined 4-for-7 on the day.

After missing all of last season with an injury, Beyer continued to trend in the right direction in his return to peak form, finishing with three hits against the Rockets, one of which was a perfectly-placed bunt that angled left, spun just beyond the mound and died squarely between a trio of hard-charging JM defenders. He added three RBIs and two stolen bases.

Noah Truelson led the team with five hits in the doubleheader while Tanner Smith drove in a team-high five runs.

THE DEFENSE

It was a tale of two games for the Huskies’ in the field.

After playing a crisp seven innings of error-free baseball in Game 1, Owatonna committed two errors in the nightcap and allowed a pair of unearned runs.

The Huskies displayed a unique level of versatility on the infield as three different players logged time at arguably the toughest spot on the diamond at shortstop. Theis earned the start in the opener before Tanner Smith took-over late after a pitching change. In Game 2, Seykora played all seven innings at short.

THE PITCHING

Seykora drew the start on the mound in Game 1 and got off to a blistering start, spinning four perfect innings before surrendering a leadoff walk in the fifth. The Rockets went on to manufacture their only run of the ballgame in the inning frame and gained a fleeting glimmer of hope after drawing within 4-1.

Owatonna — which blew Game 1 wide open by scoring five runs in the final two innings — used three different pitchers in the nightcap. Michael Reinardy pitched three perfect innings to get things started, ran into trouble in the fourth, left the game in the fifth before ultimately re-entering in the sixth.

CURRENT BIG NINE STANDINGS