Devils Lake won the 2026 Clark Rotary American Legion Tournament.
The Storm (19-7) secured the tournament championship and a 3-0 weekend record with an 8-2 win over Dell Rapids Post 65 (2-1 tournament) on Saturday in Clark, S.D. It was Devils Lake’s fifth consectuive win.
The Storm outscored opponents 26-3 in the tournament. They beat out a field of 12 teams.
While the first two games were six-inning affairs, the championship Saturday evening was seven innings. Devils Lake had 10 batters in the lineup for each of the three games.
Will Heilman put together another strong pitching performance to fuel the win. He pitched a complete game, allowing just two unearned runs that both came in the first inning. Dell Rapids loaded the bases with nobody out to begin the game, and runs scored on an error by catcher Ben Larson and a sacrifice fly.
Heilman wound up allowing just two hits after the first inning. He allowed four hits and one walk total. He struck out four.
Heilman has been Devils Lake’s most effective and most consistent pitcher this summer with only four earned runs allowed in a team-high 27 innings. That’s a 1.33 ERA.
At the plate, Devils Lake tallied 12 hits. Facing that immediate 2-0 deficit, the Storm scored in the bottom of the first as Landon Sundeen was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. There was still only one out at the time, but Devils Lake couldn’t add anything more.
The Storm trailed until the bottom of the third, when Heilman singled in Fausten Olson, who had led off with a single and advanced to second on an errant pickoff throw. Once again, Devils Lake got a runner to third with one out, but the rally fizzled out. It was 2-2 through three innings.
After those opportunites went by the wayside, Devils Lake stormed ahead with three runs in each of the next two innings. Taydon Triepke had a go-ahead RBI double and Olson recorded his second hit in the fourth inning. Alex Hammond and Laking Ronningen chipped in with RBI singles in the fifth. The Storm took an 8-2 lead, and it was more than enough for Heilman to finish the job on the other side.
Heilman went 2-for-3 at the plate to help his own cause, while Olson reached base three times out of the two-hole.
Devils Lake made two errors, while Dell Rapids made three.
The Storm will now head back to North Dakota for an important week. They currently sit in second place in the Class A East with a 9-3 region record. They have two region doubleheaders left in the regular season: eighth-place Wahpeton Post 20 (3-9 region record) on Tuesday, July 14 in Wahpeton and first-place Park River Post 147 (10-2 region record) on Friday, July 17 at home.
In between, they’ll have a non-region road doubleheader against May-Port Posts 8 & 93 on Wednesday.
The regular season then concludes Sunday, July 19 at home against the Minot Metros before the region tournament is held July 22-25 at Starion Bank Field in Fargo.