Otter 15U Wins State Tournament
The Fergus Falls Otter 15U baseball team won the state tournament in thrilling fashion Sunday on an absolutely beautiful field in Avon, Minnesota. The Otters dropped their two games Saturday in the seeding round but rebounded Sunday to win two and claim the State Championship.
The Otters received an outstanding pitching performance from Carston Fronning in game one against Albany, but the Otters only managed three singles and were shutout 3-0. Fronning went all seven innings and really did a nice job of keeping the heavy hitting Albany team off the bases. The only hits the Otters had in the game were two singles by Levi King and a single by Alex Ellison.
The Otters matched up against the Moorhead Spuds for game two. Game two followed the same pattern of the Otters receiving good starting pitching but, once again, they were unable to string together quality at bats. The Otters did grab an early 1-0 lead when King drew a leadoff walk and came around to score on a sacrifice fly by Brock Scheuerman. King was on the mound for the Otters and held the Spuds scoreless through four innings. The Spuds scored two in the top of the fifth for a 2-0 lead. King was relieved on the mound by Isaac Ellison but the Otter defense made some critical mistakes and the Spuds scored two in the sixth and two more in the seventh and won the game 7-1.
State Champs!
They say the great thing about baseball is that you get to play the next day and things can turn around in a hurry. That’s what happened for the Otters. They were sparked by another great start from Logan Larson and a key four run fourth inning with the bottom of the lineup getting keys hits and driving in runs. The Otters were a different team after that and won the game 5-1.
Larson was in complete control on the mound. He gave up a double and a single in the second inning for a 1-0 lead for the Spuds but that would be it. Scheuerman helped Larson out by gunning down a Spud trying to steal second and limit the damage.
The Otters received a one out single from Fronning in the first inning, but things were quiet offensively until the top of the fourth. Fronning reached on an error. He came around to score as Scheuerman picked up another RBI. Braden Albert was the courtesy runner for catcher Scheuerman. Luke Pearson singled and then the bottom half of the order went to work. Josiah Uggerud singled to load the bases. Andrew Klinnert picked up an RBI on a sacrifice fly to score Albert and give the Otters a 2-1 lead. With runners on second and third, Isaac Ellison delivered a two out, two run single that ignited the team and gave the Otters a 4-1 lead. The Otters scored another run in the fifth as Fronning reached on an error, stole second and eventually came around to score on a wild pitch for a 5-1 Otter lead.
Larson battled the heat and pitched a complete game giving up just the one run. Over the final five innings, Larson allowed only three Spuds to reach base and closed the game out, which was clutch. This allowed the Otters to keep some pitching for the final game of the tournament.
The Championship game found the Otters once again facing the Albany Huskies. The Huskies are a very good team and were hitting the ball hard all tournament long. The Otters turned to catcher Brock Scheuerman to start the game and he gave the Otters exactly what they needed, three quality innings to set up the bullpen to finish the game.
The Otters picked up a run in the second when Pearson reached on an error and Uggerud picked up the RBI with a single. The Huskies took a 2-1 lead as they scored two in the bottom of the second. The Otters answered and scored three in the top of the third. Larson singled and came in to score as Fronning scorched a double. Fronning would come around to score on an error by the Huskies on a ball hit by King. King stole second and came around to score on a wild pitch to give the Otters a 4-2 lead. The Huskies scored a run in the bottom of the third and had the tying run at third base and a runner at first base with one out. The runner at first tried to steal second and catcher Carston Fronning gunned him down without the runner scoring from third. Scheuerman struck the next batter for the third out of the inning and keep the Otter 4-3 lead.
Isaac Ellison relieved Scheuerman in the fourth and he saved his best outing of the summer for this game. The Huskies did manage to tie the game 4-4 in the fifth. The Otters answered right back with two in the top of the sixth. This time the top of the order produced for the Otters. With two outs, Larson and Fronning singled to bring up King. With two outs and two strikes, Levi delivered with a two run double to the right center field gap and gave the Otters a 6-4 lead.
Ellison was sharp on the mound, but a couple of defensive mistakes led to a Husky run to make it 6-5 after six innings. Andrew Klinnert started the top of the seventh off for the Otters with a long double. Ethan Schwartz did his job with a perfect sacrifice bunt that moved Klinnert to third. With two outs, Larson put together a great at bat, following pitches off and on the 11th pitch of the at bat singled to center to score Klinnert for a 7-5 lead.
Ellison faced the heart of the Husky order in the bottom of the seventh. He gave up a leadoff infield single to the number three hitter, struck out the Huskie’s hottest hitter and cleanup hitter for the first out, got the number five hitter to hit a lazy fly ball to Klinnert in center, walked a batter but came right back and got the final out on a little infield popup to Uggerud at first base. With that out, the Otters won the game 7-5 and are the State Champions for 15U.
The win qualifies the Otter for a trip to the Midwest Plains Regional Tournament that is held in Rapid City, South Dakota the end of July.
Ian Stumbo did a tremendous job as coach of the 15U Otters. Steve King was the other coach and a special thanks to Lori Larson for her help in communications and helping manage the teams’ behind the scenes work.
