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14U Otter Baseball Claims 2nd Place at Morris Tournament

By Steve King, 06/14/21, 4:45PM CDT

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The 14U Otter baseball team continued their winning ways with a 2nd place finish in a very tough state qualifying tournament in Morris this past weekend. The Otters went 3-1, losing the championship game to a very good team from Royalton.

In game one the Otters took on the tournament host, the Morris Tigers. This is the best game the Otters have put together this season. Great pitching and defense and timely hitting keyed the 5-2 win. The Otters scored the first two runs in the game in the bottom of the second inning on a clutch two out, two run single by Luke Pearson for a 2-0 lead. The Tigers scored a single run in the top of the third to make the score 2-1 but the Otters answered that with a run of their own. Levi King drew a lead-off walk and stole second. Logan Larson did his job and got King to third base where he scored on a wild pitch to make it 3-1 Otters.

Morris scored a single run in the top of the fifth but the Otters put the game away with two runs in the bottom of the fifth. Pearson reached on an error and stole second. Lucas Hanson drew a walk. With two outs, Carston Fronning had a great at bat to load the bases for Henry Bethel. Bethel lined a single to center field to score Pearson and Hanson for a 5-2 lead.

Isaac Ellison pitched a great game going five strong innings against a very good Morris Tiger team. Fronning pitched the final inning and put the Tigers away in order. The Otter defense turned in several exceptional defensive plays, two by Fronning at third base, and committed no errors for the game. Catcher Brock Scheuerman threw out two Tigers trying to steal and had a solid game behind the plate. Put it all together and the Otters had a 5-2 win against a solid Morris Tiger club.

In the second game of the day, the Otters took on a team from Marshall and really took advantage of the Marshall mistakes for a 15-1 win. Jack Ratz and Logan Larson led the offensive attack with two runs batted in while Bethel, Isaac Iverson, Brock Scheuerman, Alex Ellison, Andrew Klinnert and Lucas Hanson each had an RBI.

Henry Bethel started the game and pitched 3 solid innings. King came in and pitched the final inning of the game that was shortened due to the 10 run rule after four innings.

That moved the Otters to Sunday and they played a strong team from Montevideo. The Otters had to come from behind in this game and needed this win to move to the championship game. The Otters started slow going out in order in the top half of the first inning and committing two errors in the bottom half of the inning to give Montevideo a 2-0 lead.

Fortunately for the Otters, starting pitcher Logan Larson found his groove, some key defensive plays were made, and the offense came to life. In the top of the third, King drew a two out walk, stole second and scored on an RBI single by Larson to cut the lead to 2-1. The Otters took the lead for good in the top of the fourth. Alex Ellison picked up and RBI on a ground out to tie the game 2-2. Pearson and Hanson had RBI singles to give the Otters a 5-2 lead.

The Otter pitchers were aided by two great defensive plays by center fielder Andrew Klinnert. Klinnert made a nice diving catch and then fielded a ball and alertly threw to second to get a force out to end a Montevideo rally. Larson pitched five strong innings and King came relieved him in the sixth with the Otters leading 5-2. King did give up a run to make the game 5-3 but the game ended in dramatic fashion. With a runner on third base, King fielded a ground ball, threw to Alex Ellison to get the out at first and Ellison fired a bullet to catcher Scheuerman who stuck the tag on the runner trying to score to get the final out of the game at the plate and preserve the 5-3 win.

Larson pitched five strong innings to get the win and King pitched the sixth to earn the save. The win moved the Otters to the championship game against the Royalton Royals. Royalton was the best team in the tournament, but the Otter defense committed 8 errors in an 11-7 loss.

The Otters did get a first inning lead when King reached on an error, stole second and came in to score for a 1-0 lead. Royalton tied the score 1-1 in the bottom of the first and then took 3-1 lead in the bottom of the second. The Otters tied the score at 3-3 with a pair of runs in the third on RBI base hits by Scheuerman and Ratz.

The Royals took the lead for good with a four run bottom of the third and they added for more in the bottom of the fourth as the Otters committed four errors that inning. That made the score 11-3. The Otters didn’t quit though, and they battled back to make the game interesting. In the fifth, King walked and stole second, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a Larson sacrifice fly. Fronning doubled and Ratz walked and both moved up a base to put runners on second and third. Alex Ellison singled Fronning and Ratz home to make the score 11-6. The Otters rallied again in the top of the seventh but could only push one run across on an Alex Ellison single for a final score of 11-7 in favor of the Royals.

The pitching for the Otters was strong but the Otters just committed to many errors to win the game. Fronning started and pitched three innings, King pitched an inning and Isaac Iverson did a great job pitching two scoreless innings against a good hitting Royalton team.

The loss was the first of the season for the 14U Otters and they have a record of 7-1. They host PRBA at Farmer’s Field Monday at 6:30.