FARGO — Every Devils Lake starter had a hit in Thursday’s rout of Wahpeton Post 20.
Backed by six scoreless innings from Will Heilman, who lowered his ERA to 1.13 over 40 innings this summer, the Storm (25-7) won 10-0 over Wahpeton (17-18) in the East Region quarterfinals at Starion Bank Field. It was a solid way to kick off the postseason for the A team.
“Good to see that we’re starting to get it rolling at the right time,” Heilman said. “We knew we could do it all year, but we’ve just got to keep going.”
Devils Lake scored 10 runs on 12 hits and five walks while only striking out twice in five-plus innings.
“It was nice to see our kids just kind of stay relaxed,” Devils Lake coach Eric Nygaard said. “We didn’t score any runs in the first inning, but I just had a feeling that they kind of had their own plan.”
Ben Larson, who’s been swinging a scorching-hot bat all summer, tagged a one-out double in the second inning to get things started. Brody Rainsberry laid down a perfect bunt hit to further set the table.
It was one of two bunt hits for Rainsberry on Thursday.
“Since our last game against Park River, he really worked on his bunting,” Nygaard said. “I know Coach [Jeff] Carpenter and him kind of worked on that part of it, worked on the angle of the bat. … And he’s so fast.”
The first run of the game came in on a groundout by Hunter Remmick. Then Cayden McCarthy and Max Palmer added clutch two-out RBI singles to make it 3-0.
“Another thing we worked on this week, too, is just situational hitting,” Nygaard said. “So if we’ve got runners on second, we’re trying to hit the ball to right-center.”
Heilman induced a 4-6-3 double play to get through the first inning, then struck out two batters in the second to work around a two-out hit and an error. He stranded a pair of free passes in the fourth.
Taydon Triepke blooped an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth, setting another merry-go-round in motion. Heilman came to the plate having gone 0-for-2 with a strikeout thus far. He cashed in with the bases loaded, smashing a two-run double.
“Just went up there and saying, ‘Forget the last two at-bats and just keep it simple,’” Heilman said. “‘Do what Skip’s been telling us to do all year.’”
Another scored on a wild pitch. Fausten Olson, the lone Storm starter who hadn’t recorded a hit, lined an RBI single to make it 8-0. It was a five-run frame to blow it open.
Heilman had been dealing with traffic in the early frames, but he settled in to keep Devils Lake cruising. He retired nine straight batters from the third inning through the sixth, striking out four in that span.
It continued a trend of Heilman taking a few innings to get fully comfortable on the mound.
“I wish that wouldn’t happen, but it usually does,” he said. “But just gotta work around it like I usually do.”
Wahpeton’s three-hitter, Aiden Hajek, ended Heilman’s streak with a one-out single in the sixth. That was all Heilman allowed as he recorded his eighth strikeout.
Heilman limited Wahpeton to three hits and one walk. He threw 80 pitches (58 strikes).
“He’s just a workhorse,” Nygaard said. “He had three pitches tonight. We pitched Wahpeton a little bit different than we did last week. … [Catcher] Ben Brodina came in and said his fastball’s got a lot of run on it, and it was very quick. So we kind of used his fastball a little bit more, but more inside.”
Leading off the bottom of the sixth, Max Palmer did his best to make sure Heilman wouldn’t have to go out for another inning. Palmer slapped a triple deep into the right-field corner. He scored on a sacrifice fly by his twin brother Mason.
The Storm scored on a trio of free passes and a wild pitch, walking it off by run rule.
They advanced to a Friday semifinal matchup with No. 4 seed Park River Post 147 at 7:30 p.m.
Just six days earlier, Devils Lake completed a doubleheader sweep of the Pirates after scoring seven runs in the bottom of the seventh to win 13-12. Heilman hit the walk-off in that game.
“Hopefully we don’t gotta do a comeback,” he said. “And hopefully we just handle business.”
The winner of Friday’s game clinches a spot in the state tournament. The loser will play on Saturday against the winner of the losers’ bracket game between the Fargo Post 2 Jets and West Fargo Aces.
“It’s good competition in this region,” Nygaard said. “It’s fun to play these teams, too. We know we’re gonna get good games from everybody.”