DEVILS LAKE — The Devils Lake Storm A team sits in third place in the East Region.
But the Storm (15-7) aren’t far behind first place. With a 9-3 region record, they’re only percentage points behind West Fargo Aces and Park River Post 147 Pirates, who each came into this week at 8-2.
While Monday’s games against the Grand Forks Post 6 Royals (12-12) didn’t count towards the region standings, scoring 33 runs over 10 offensive innings was a welcome way to bounce back from losing two region games to the West Fargo Aces.
“That was very impressive on our part,” Devils Lake coach Eric Nygaard said. “We swung it well today hit it where they weren’t. So it was fun to see them play, just to swing the bats, find the barrels and hit good pitches.”
Front and center was star Mason Palmer, who absurdly reached base eight times in nine plate appearances, with seven hits including three homers, a triple and a double.
“It was really awesome,” Palmer said. “It was a complete change of pace from when we played West Fargo previously. The boys were hitting the ball, and it was fun. The dugout was fun. The whole game was fun.”
A key to Devils Lake’s success this summer — which includes nine consecutive region wins at one point — has been the pitching settling in after an inauspicious start.
And that’s despite not being at full health.
Various pains and soreness have limited Palmer and Hunter Remmick to one start each. Two standouts during the middle stretch of the season were Will Heilman and Tayven Wiberg, the latter of whom likely wasn’t even in the preseason rotation plans.
Heilman and Wiberg both pitched on June 24 against the Fargo Post 400 Comets. Heilman was outstanding: seven scoreless innings with just two hits, one walk and seven strikeouts. Wiberg was nearly as good, with one run allowed over six innings with eight strikeouts. Wiberg has been extended after working his way back from elbow surgery.
Ben Larson and Cayden McCarthy both pitched well the next day in a pair of tight wins over the Fargo Post 2 Jets.
Five days later, the Storm went right back to Heilman and Wiberg. At full health, Palmer and Remmick almost certainly would have been slotted in there somewhere, but it hardly mattered as Heilman and Wiberg turned in another pair of strong performances. Heilman allowed one run over six innings while striking out six. Wiberg pitched a complete game, allowing two runs and striking out eight.
“If we can just control what we can control, just do the things that we’re good at and not try to do too much, that’s kind of been our whole philosophy,” Nygaard said of his team, which won seven consecutive games from June 22-30.
Early in the season, the story was all about the hitting, particularly the home runs.
For the most part, that hasn’t slowed down. Led by Palmer’s six, Devils Lake now has a whopping 15 home runs on the summer. Sure, there have been some favorable weather conditions here and there, but this is largely the same team that hit precisely zero home runs in all of 2025.
Palmer said he thinks it’s a reward for consistent reps.
“Just trying to lift the ball, get the launch angle,” he said. “But also, the guys put a lot of effort up in the gym, so that also helps.”
Behind Palmer on the leaderboard is Ben Larson, who had never hit a home run. He has four this summer. The remaining five homers have come from five individuals: Heilman, Wiberg, Ben Brodina, Brody Rainsberry and Landon Sundeen.
With an offense that’s been explosive for most of the season, Devils Lake has lived and died with its pitching. Rough pitching performance fueled some of the Storm’s early-season losses, including a late blown lead to Lincoln North Star and a 16-4 blowout against Creighton Prep, both in the Dakota Classic. When their seven-game winning streak ended July 1 against the West Fargo Aces, Larson got tagged for nine runs (seven earned) in four innings as Devils Lake eventually lost 13-4.
One of the only offensive shortcomings came in the second game of that doubleheader against the Aces. McCarthy pitched a solid game, but Devils Lake lost 3-1. Aside from that game, the Storm have scored at least four runs in every game they’ve played this summer.
“The other day, we worked on timing and pitch recognition, pitch location, that type of stuff,” Nygaard said. “And it’s just a process of hitting. I think coming off of that first South Dakota tournament, I think our swings were a little bit different. And we just had to get them back into hitting the ball, square it up, situational. … It’s awesome to be around.”
And on the pitching side, Palmer and Remmick still factor into Devils Lake’s plans. They each returned to the mound Monday after roughly a month away. Palmer’s discomfort was more of a recent thing, but Nygaard described it as precautionary. Remmick’s soreness started back during his spring season for Lake Region State College, and he hasn’t quite regained the velocity and effectiveness of past years.
In his first start since June 4, Remmick threw three innings and 68 pitches. He allowed four runs and two homers on a day where the wind was blowing out aggressively, which benefited both teams’ lineups.
Remmick had an MRI about two to three weeks ago, Nygaard said.
“We were cautious on getting back him in the lineup,” Nygaard said. “He probably threw a few more pitches than what we would have liked. … He said his arm feels good.”
The Storm have also been without Brodina recently as he’s been out of town.
With Heilman and Brodina being the primary catchers, Larson has gotten some reps there.
“One good thing about that, though, is he’s caught before,” Nygaard said. “He’s just a good person to put back there, give Will a break. And Will has kind of given us a lot of innings.”
Brodina being out has also allowed Devils Lake to put the quietly lethal Taydon Triepke in the leadoff spot. As usual, Triepke has been producing. He reached base twice in each game of Monday’s doubleheader.
“Ben’s gonna have to compete for that job back in the leadoff,” Nygaard said. “It’s gonna be hard to take [Triepke] out of that leadoff spot now. So he’s hitting the ball, swinging it well. He’s got some RBIs, finding some holes.”
The Storm will now see what they have against some South Dakota competition in the small town of Clark. The opponents are pretty much a complete unknown to the team.
“I don’t even know who we’re playing yet,” Nygaard said. “It’ll be fun. … I think we used six pitchers [Monday], if I’m correct, and we’re gonna try to do that same thing. Kind of limit their pitches, but get everybody back on the mound. So then we’ve got the final stretch of our region schedule.”
Devils Lake will try to take over the No. 1 seed with four games against Wahpeton Post 20 and Park River Post 147. Wahpeton is near the bottom of the league at 2-8, but Park River — a first-year Class A team — will be a challenge.
“It would be nice to have the one seed,” Nygaard said. “But if we don’t, we’ve just got to play baseball.”