Cubs split in first weekend of Class A state tourney

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ABERDEEN – The Brookings Cubs fought off both the Yankton Tappers and Mother Nature on Friday night in the opening game of the 2022 South Dakota Class “A” Amateur Baseball State Tournament, defeating the Tappers 13-6 in a game which included a rain delay of just under two hours.

Brookings then crossed paths with the Renner Monarchs, a team whose roster is filled with mostly current University of Sioux Falls and Augustana University baseball players, and a short-handed Cubs squad was defeated in seven innings, 11-0.

The win over the Tappers guaranteed Brookings a visit to Mitchell for the second weekend of the Class “A” state tournament where the Cubs will play Aberdeen Circus Sports Bar on Friday at 3:30 p.m. on Drake Field, adjacent to Cadwell Park where the entirety of the Class “B” state tournament is being contested.

The Sioux Falls Hops will play the Black Hills A’s in the game preceding the Cubs game, set to start at 1:30 p.m. on Drake Field, while at Cadwell, the Sioux Falls Flying Squirrels and aforementioned Monarchs take to the field at 1 p.m. in the battle of the two teams who finished the opening weekend with 2-0 records.

Friday

Brookings 13, Yankton 6

Yankton got on the board in the top half of the first inning, a trend the Cubs have dealt with most of the year, allowing an opponent a first inning run.

Tyler Linch opened the inning with a single, then Colin Muth doubled to score Linch and give Yankton a 1-0 lead. Cubs’ starter Craig Lasley then plunked Rand Thygeson before settling down to record a pair of bookend strikeouts of Mason Townsend and Mitch Gullickson, with Tommy Alitz flying out in between K’s.

Brookings went quietly in the bottom of the first, as did the Tappers in the top of the second, but the Cubs responded in the home half of the second inning.

JaColby Anderson wore a pitch in the left shoulder to begin the inning, then moved to second on Bandits’ call-up Justin Cofell’s infield single. After a fly-out, Noel Burgos drew a walk which loaded the bases, but a strikeout of Jamison Honkomp for the second out put the pressure on Austin Koenig to deliver, and on the 10th anniversary of Koenig winning the only state title in Brookings American Legion history on the same Fossum Field in Aberdeen, Koenig delivered a two-run single to give the Cubs a 2-1 lead.

The lead grew to 4-1 on Jared Tschetter’s double that split defenders in left-cen-ter field. Brookings added another run on a wild pitch that scored Tschetter, giving Brookings a 5-1 lead after two innings.

The Tappers got a run back in the third inning. Linch singled to start off the frame and would get to second on a fielding error in the outfield. Mac Ryken, courtesy running for Linch who was the Yankton catcher, would come around to score on a base hit from Townsend that cut the Cubs lead to 5-2.

Brookings got that run back in the bottom half of the third inning. Cofell’s second infield single of the game came with one out, then Evan Miller singled to move Cofell to third. A third straight hit, this time from Burgos, scored Cofell to make it 6-2 before consecutive strikeouts ended the inning.

That score remained the same until the seventh inning when Yankton cut the lead in half on a run-scoring bases loaded hit from Linch scored one, then Joe Gokie raced home on a double steal that trimmed the Brookings lead to 6-4.

In the bottom of the eighth inning with lightning flashes getting ever closer and wind gusts picking up the infield dirt and blowing it across the diamond, Sam McMacken entered the game after arriving late and promptly logged a base hit, which was followed up by a walk to Koenig. A fielder’s choice off the bat of Tschetter retired Koenig and moved McMacken to third, and with the Fossum Field grounds crew yelling at the umpires to let them tarp the field, the game went into a rain delay at 7:48 p.m. with the tarps being secured as a blinding rain began falling.

Both teams would huddle in their respective dugouts for nearly an hour while rain and small hail, along with wind gusts approaching 60 miles per hour pelted the field. The rain would finally let up and the field crew managed to get the playing surface back in shape, allowing the game to resume at 9:46 p.m. after a nearly two-hour delay.

Jackson Krogman walked as the first batter out of the delay, then Jeff Fish ripped a single to left that scored two and put the Cubs back up 8-4. Cofell walked and reloaded the bases for Miller whose grounder ate up Gokie at short and allowed Krogman to score and make it 9-4. A wild pitch then made it 10-4 as Fish scored, then Burgos walked to reload the bases. McMacken second hit of the inning emptied the bases as his double made it 13-4.

Yankton made things interesting early in the top of the ninth as the first two batters reached and both would eventually score to cut the lead to 13-6 but the Tappers would get no closer as Brookings avoided an 0-1 start to the tournament.

Lasley worked the first eight innings for the win, scattering six hits and walking three while allowing four runs of which only one was earned. Lasley struck out six.

Fish pitched the ninth inning, his first appearance on the mound since 2018.

Cofell had three hits in his Cubs’ debut, while McMacken drove in three runs with his two eighth inning hits.

Tschetter also had two RBI with two hits, while Fish and Koenig added two RBIs each.

Linch and Muth both had three hits for Yankton, but the rest of the Tappers’ line-up managed just one hit, Townsend’s single. Linch had two RBI while Muth, Townsend, and Gokie had one RBI each.

Chris Rofe, a Mount Marty pitcher, took the loss after pitching the first five innings. Rofe allowed six earned runs on seven hits, walking two, and striking out seven, exiting the game after throwing 113 pitches.

Saturday

Renner 11, Brookings 0

Little went right for the Cubs on Saturday as the defending champion Monarchs, whose already strong lineup benefited from the drafting of Brandon Valley’s top two hitters, shut out Brookings 11-to-0 in seven innings.

The Monarchs opened the scoring in the bottom of the first with an RBI double off the bat of Mitch Stroh, but Cubs’ starter JaColby Anderson would limit the damage to a single run by getting one of the drafted players, the Rats’ Ryan Hamilton, to bounce out to second to end the inning.

Renner struck for seven runs in the second inning, the big blow coming off the bat of Hamilton who drove a wind-aided home run to left field that would make it 8-0.

The Monarchs made it 9-0 in the bottom of the third with a base hit from Kyle Gulbrandson that scored Ben Ihrke. Anderson would finish the inning but give way to another Bandits’ call-up, Jake Ammann, to start the fourth.

Ammann struck out the other Rats’ draftee, Jaxon Hasse, for the first out of the inning, then punched out Hamilton for out number two. Three straight walks would load the bases but Ihrke popped out to Krogman at short to end the inning.

After another scoreless inning for the Cubs in the fifth, Ammann picked up two more strikeouts in the bottom of the fifth while working around a two-out walk, keeping the score 9-0 after five.

Renner finally would get to Ammann in the sixth as three straight hits from Hamilton, Ryan Hander, and Maddix Baggs opened the inning and gave the Monarchs a 10-0 lead. A one-out single from Ihrke made it 11-0 before Brookings turned a double play to end the inning.

The Cubs went quietly in the top of the seventh as the came would end by 10-run rule.

Anderson and Koenig had Brookings’ only hits, a single each.

Ihrke had three hits and three RBI for Renner, while Hamilton’s homer was one of his two hits as he also drove in three runs. Hander added two hits of his own for the Monarchs.

Anderson allowed nine earned runs in three innings, giving up seven hits, walking three, and striking out three, in the losing effort.

Ammann picked up four strikeouts in three innings of relief.

Renner’s Tom Sun struck out nine in seven innings for the win.

In other games of the first weekend of the Class “A” tournament, the Black Hills A’s eliminated Yankton with a 12-8 win in the first elimination game of the weekend.

In the second half of the bracket, the Sioux Falls Flying Squirrels beat the Rapid City Diamondbacks 14-3 and the Sioux Falls Hops defeated the host Aberdeen Circus Sports Bar with a 2-0 shutout.

In the Sunday elimination game Aberdeen beat the Dia-mondbacks 13-3 to stay alive, while the Flying Squirrels pummeled the Hops, 17-1, to move to the second weekend at 2-0.

Second Weekend Schedule, Mitchell

Friday – Winner’s Bracket

• SF Flying Squirrels vs. Renner Monarchs, 1 p.m., Cadwell Park

Elimination Games

• SF Hops vs. Black Hills A’s, 1:30 p.m., Drake Field

• Brookings Cubs vs. Aberdeen Circus Sports Bar, 3:30 p.m., Drake Field

Saturday

The winners of the two Friday elimination games will play to knock out a fifth team. That game will begin at 11 a.m. at Cadwell Park. The winner of that game will play the loser of the Friday 2-0’s game immediately afterward for the second berth to the championship game.

Sunday

The team who survives the gauntlet of the loser’s bracket will play the remaining undefeated team for the Class “A” state championship at noon at Cadwell Park. Despite being listed as double-elimination, should the team with one loss beat the undefeated team, a second winner-take-all cham-pionship game will not be played.