The Lake Mills baseball team put together one of its finest efforts of the season against the second place team in the North Iowa Conference Friday night in a 5-2 win over Garner-Hayfield at home.

The Bulldogs got a solid starter from Nolan Zobel who threw seven full innings and allowed one earned run on six hits and struck out five in the victory.

Although Lake Mills controlled the game for the majority of play it almost seemed like the game could slip away.

Last season, the Bulldogs were on top of the Cardinals in the seventh inning, but a throwing error by their shortstop allowed Garner-Hayfield to work their way back into the game and stole a win from Lake Mills.

History nearly repeated itself again Friday when the Bulldogs made an error at shortstop that allowed the Cardinals to reach base, but the night belonged to Zobel and he struck out the next batter to end the game.

“It was probably our most complete game of the season,” Lake Mills head coach Jason Blaser said. “We played great defense.”

The defense committed two errors in the game and one led to an unearned run, but it also turned two double plays in the game.

The Bulldogs have three regular season games remaining and could move as high as second place with another Garner-Hayfield loss.

Lake Mills 5, Garner-Hayfield 2

Garner-Hayfield – 1000100 – 2 6 2

Lake Mills – 101 120 0 – 5 5 2

WP – Nolan Zobel 7 IP 6 H, 5K, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB