By John RittenhouseThe Luverne VFW baseball team remained three games above the .500 mark for the season after splitting a home double-header with Worthington Thursday.Worthington topped the Cardinals by two runs in the opener. Luverne gained revenge by nipping the Trojans by one run in the finale.Luverne, 9-6 overall, plays one game in Marshall before traveling to Edgerton for a double-header Monday.Worthington 6, Luverne 4A two-run fifth inning for Worthington proved to be the difference during Thursday’s opener in Luverne.The Cardinals rallied from a 4-0 deficit to knot the score at four in the bottom of the third inning, but Worthington’s two-run fifth inning settled the issue.Worthington gained an early lead by scoring two runs in both the first and third innings before the Cards tied the game with a four-run rallyi n the bottom of the third.Chris Den Hoed drew a walk and Phil Paquette singled for Luverne before Brent Dinger cut Worthington’s lead in half (4-2) with a two-run double.Zach Olson doubled home Dinger before scoring the tying run when Zach Clark singled.Paquette pitched the first five innings and took the loss. Five of the six runs he was charged with were unearned.Olson tossed two innings of scoreless relief.Box score AB R H BIHoff 4 0 3 0Den Hoed 3 1 1 0Paquette 4 1 1 0Dinger 4 1 2 2Olson 4 1 1 1Ossefoort 3 0 1 0Christensen 1 0 0 0Connell 1 0 0 0Clark 2 0 1 1Skattum 1 0 0 0Graphenteen 2 0 1 0Luverne 2, Worthington 1Luverne scored two late runs to gain a split with the Trojans during the finale.After the teams played to a scoreless draw through five innings, Luverne plated single runs in the fifth and sixth innings to nip Worthington by one.Luverne broke through the game’s first run when Olson doubled and scored on a single by Paquette in the top of the sixth.Worthington countered with a run in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game, but the Cards scored again in the seventh and blanked the Trojans in the bottom of the frame to pull out the victory.Clark singled, stole second base and scored the eventual winning run when Jeremy Hoff delivered an RBI single.Dinger hurled a complete game to lead the Cardinals to victory.The Luverne pitcher fanned nine batters, walked two and yielded two hits.Box score AB R H BIHoff 4 0 2 1Den Hoed 3 0 0 0Olson 2 1 0 0Dinger 3 0 1 0Paquette 4 0 2 1Skattum 2 0 0 0Ossefoort 1 0 0 0Connell 2 0 0 0Altman 1 0 1 0Graphenteen 3 0 0 0Clark 3 1 1 0