The Devils Lake baseball team is back in action.
The Firebirds played their first two games Tuesday against West Fargo at Young Field — more than two weeks after they were originally scheduled to open the season.
They went with their top two starting pitchers, Will Heilman and Mason Palmer. Both righties started shakily but settled in nicely. They combined to strike out 17 in the doubleheader.
The Devils Lake offense was held in check in the first game, a 4-2 loss, before breaking out in the nightcap for an 11-2 win. Max Palmer had the biggest performance at the plate, going 4-for-5 out of the leadoff spot in the Firebirds’ first win of 2026.
The split moved Devils Lake (1-1, 1-1) into fifth place in the Eastern Dakota Conference in the very early going.
Devils Lake was the preseason No. 7 in the coaches poll, while West Fargo (3-3, 1-1) was No. 6.
Game 1: West Fargo 4, Devils Lake 2
It took Heilman a couple of innings to settle in.
But once he did, he turned in a fantastic outing.
The Firebirds’ offense was held to five hits and two walks. West Fargo starter Luke Finn allowed two runs (one earned) in five innings, and then Brody Medina pitched two hitless innings to close it out.
Devils Lake’s unearned run came in the first inning of the season to take a brief 1-0 lead. Max Palmer scored on an error by Medina — playing shortstop at the time — on a liner off of Mason Palmer’s bat.
The Packers rallied for three in the bottom of the first against Heilman. One of the runs was unearned because of an error by Taydon Triepke after a double in right field.
Heilman struck out the first two batters in the bottom of the second. But West Fargo recorded three two-out hits against him to extend its lead to 4-1.
It was smooth sailing for Heilman after that. The junior, who had a 1.35 ERA in 20 innings last spring, held West Fargo hitless over the final four innings. Though typically not a huge strikeout pitcher, Heilman collected eight strikeouts. He walked only two.
He threw 87 pitches (57 strikes) in the six-inning, complete-game loss. He allowed four runs, but only three earned.
Devils Lake got one run back in the fifth, as Triepke came up clutch with a single to drive in Alex Hammond, who had led off the inning with a hit. The rally came to an abrupt halt as Mason Palmer lined into a double play.
And that was the last spark for the Devils Lake offense.
Game 2: Devils Lake 11, West Fargo 2
The Firebirds quickly wiped off the loss and ended the evening with their first win of the season.
It got off to another inauspicious start. Mason Palmer, who can run his fastball into the upper 80s, surrendered a two-run homer to West Fargo catcher Ryan Camarillo in the first inning.
But the rest of the game belonged to Devils Lake. The Firebirds totaled 13 hits and 10 walks, and they scored in five consecutive innings.
The first of Max Palmer’s four hits was a game-tying two-run single in the second inning. The Firebirds loaded the bases on three walks in the third, then took the lead on a sacrifice bunt from nine-hitter Tayven Wiberg.
Max Palmer hit another two-run single to give Devils Lake a 5-2 cushion.
Ben Brodina and Heilman added RBI singles in the fourth and fifth, respectively. Easton Kraft drew a walk with the bases loaded to make it 8-2.
The Firebirds scored three more in the sixth, getting an RBI single from Max Palmer and a two-out, two-run hit from Brodina. Palmer totaled five RBIs.
Brodina and Mason Palmer both reached base four times, with two hits and two walks for each of them.
Every starter in the Devils Lake lineup reached base at least once.
And Mason Palmer, after the two-run first, handled business on the mound for the next five innings. He struck out nine, walked only one and limited West Fargo to two runs on five hits. He threw 85 pitches (58 strikes).
Jaxon Strong pitched a scoreless seventh inning to finish the deal.
Final takeaways
The way the first couple of innings went in each game might have made some people hold their breaths for a bit, but it was a mostly successful opening go-round for the top two pitchers in Devils Lake’s rotation.
There was bound to be a little rust after how long it took the Firebirds to be able to play a game. But they left West Fargo having won a game against a solid team.
Devils Lake’s new-look offense showed some solid signs. The Palmers expectedly led the way, reaching base 10 times between them throughout the doubleheader, but it’s the contributions up and down the lineup that stick out.
Hammond, Devils Lake’s new center fielder playing his first varsity reps, got a hit in his first game. Wiberg, another first-year varsity starter, got in on the action out of the nine-spot in the second game. Brodina, who’s spent some time with the Legion A team but is new to varsity, had a big nightcap in the middle of the order.
Cayden McCarthy, who’s played varsity in the past but is now the starter at first base, had a hit in each game and reached base three times in the nightcap. Triepke also had a hit in each game.
The Firebirds displayed a potent lineup one-through-nine on Tuesday.
They’ll look to keep it going Thursday on the road against West Fargo Sheyenne (4-2, 2-0), the defending state champion and preseason No. 4 in the EDC, at 4:30 p.m.
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