Jackson Baeth/Photos by Noah Clooten
DEVILS LAKE — Parker Brodina had never hit a home run in a high school game. He’d hit some in Legion ball, but he’d never sent one out in a varsity contest.
Now he has.
He stepped up to the plate with his Firebirds trailing 2-1 on Friday. They’d just gotten on the board thanks to their ever-reliable cleanup hitter, Jackson Baeth, but they were still looking for that extra spark.
They got it from Brodina’s bat.
He appeared to get jammed. But the ball flew out to left-center and just kept carrying, all the way over the fence for a go-ahead shot and the first of Brodina’s high school career.
“I didn’t think it was going out,” Brodina said, “but the wind really pushed it out.”
His homer was the first of three lead changes in a wild 7-6 defeat of Grand Forks Red River (3-8, 2-4) on Friday. The game featured virtually everything: a pitchers’ duel, an offensive explosion, long balls and small ball. In the end, it was the Firebirds’ ninth win in their last 10 games, making them 11-5 overall and 5-1 in region games.
“I don’t really know how to describe it. Our kids didn’t quit,” head coach Brent Luehring said. “They just kept at it.”
For the first three innings, it was a struggle for Devils Lake offensively against Red River starter Griffen Haagenson. He struck out the first two batters against an offense that didn’t strike out at all in Monday’s 12-0 win over Grand Forks Central.
A throwing error by Haagenson nearly gave Devils Lake a run in the first. Baeth, the Firebirds’ most dangerous hitter, came up with a runner on second. He drew a walk, but Brodina grounded out to end the threat. In the second inning, a double play erased a Trason Beck single. Then the Firebirds went down 1-2-3 in the third.
“I thought we let [Haagenson] dictate,” Luehring said. “I thought we let him get in a rhythm.”
Brodina cruised through the first two innings on the mound, with a strikeout in each frame. The only baserunner came on an error. Early on, the game had the makings of a low-scoring contest.
With a runner on first in the top of the third, Brodina induced a ground ball to second baseman Max Palmer. Rather than take the easier out at first, Palmer tried to get the lead runner, but the throw was inaccurate and everybody was safe. The error led to two runs on back-to-back RBI hits. Brodina ended the frame with back-to-back strikeouts, but not before Devils Lake fell into a 2-0 hole.
With the way Haagenson was carving up Firebirds batters through the first three innings, a deficit like that might have seemed insurmountable. But they erased it in a hurry. Baeth stayed hot with an RBI double to get Devils Lake on the board, and Brodina’s homer put the Firebirds ahead 3-2.
“We were just trying to gain confidence and attack the fastball,” Brodina said. “Just try to hit it the other way and hit a line drive. But it took us three innings to figure that out.”
Now working with a 3-2 lead, Brodina threw a perfect fourth and fifth.
“I didn’t think Parker was his best again today,” Luehring said. “But he just competes. Kept us in it.”
The Firebirds got two more in the bottom of the fifth, as Baeth smashed a homer to left field. He added a nice bat flip to boot. It was his third of the season and the team’s fourth, boosting Devils Lake to a 5-2 lead.
“We know we’ve got those kids that can hit the ball a long way,” Luehring said. “It’s just getting guys on.”
But Brodina, who had seemingly settled into a groove, let up in the sixth. The rally started on a leadoff error by Mason Palmer, who made a wild throw for Devils Lake’s third error of the game. The Firebirds’ fundamentals were uncharacteristically shaky.
“I think Mason was sitting back on the ball a little bit more than he normally does. He needs to play with a little urgency,” Luehring said. “He’ll fix it. We’ll fix it. Our defense has probably been our strong suit.”
Back-to-back doubles trimmed Devils Lake’s lead to one. Luehring visited Brodina on the mound, but then Haagenson smashed one to a similar spot as Baeth’s homer. The two-run blast capped a four-run inning for Red River, putting the Firebirds down 6-5.
“I didn’t really feel the greatest,” Brodina said of his pitching performance. “I didn’t feel smooth.”
The Roughriders brought in a new pitcher for the sixth, Matthew Dosch, who almost immediately gift-wrapped a run for Devils Lake and sealed it with a bow. He hit Ben Larson with a pitch, then committed two throwing errors within the span of two batters to allow Larson to score.
Max Palmer — as he so often does in the late innings — laid down a perfect squeeze bunt to bring home the go-ahead run. After hitting home runs in back-to-back innings, the Firebirds went back to their signature small ball style to score two and take a 7-6 lead.
“We were able to do what we do and take that lead,” Luehring said.
Locking down the save in the ninth was none other than the star cleanup hitter, Baeth. He got the first two batters to ground out in stressfree fashion.
The Roughriders made it interesting with a couple two-out baserunners, drawing a walk and hitting a single through the left side. Then on a potential third strike, the home plate umpire declared that the batter Dosch checked his swing. Baeth wasn’t happy with the call and asked for the second base umpire to confirm, but the umpire had almost no reaction whatsoever.
Everyone held their breaths. The way this game was going, there was no sure bet about anything.
But Baeth induced a comebacker that he handled cleanly. Rather than risk anything with a throw, he sprinted to the first base bag himself and got the final out.
It was another gritty victory for this soaring club.
“You don’t like to talk about a season because you’re just playing one game, but this is a pretty big swing game for us,” Luehring said. “We can start competing for upper seeds… We’ve let [Red River] off the hook back-to-back years. I thought we should have beat them twice.”
The Firebirds now travel to Fargo South for a doubleheader at noon on Saturday, May 4.
