Photo by Noah Clooten
DEVILS LAKE — It was a long Tuesday evening of baseball, with the Devils Lake B team (6-8) playing two seven-inning games against Rugby Post 23 (4-3). The Storm battled for a 12-8 comeback win in the first contest, but fell 8-2 as the night came to close. It was Devils Lake’s fifth doubleheader split amidst a summer that’s nearing its final few weeks.
“I thought we lost our focus in the second game,” Storm head coach Eric Nygaard said. “But the first game, we came off and played really good baseball.”
Game 1: Devils Lake 12, Rugby 8
Well, it wasn’t the prettiest. But it went down as a Storm win.
Devils Lake trailed by five runs early on, but stormed back with nine runs between the fourth and fifth inning. Each team committed five errors, and they combined for 19 hits and 12 walks. Ultimately, Devils Lake just outlasted Rugby with its offensive attack.
“Showed our character in that first game,” Nygaard said. “Got some key hits. Some things bounced our way. And we took advantage of that.”
For Cayden McCarthy, it’s been a similar story in each of his starts this summer.
Despite possessing a strong arm and a solid curveball, the young right-hander has struggled with control. And he had one of his wild spurts in the first inning. He walked four consecutive batters in a five-run frame. There were a few wild pitches and stolen bases in the inning, too, along with a pair of throwing errors. Rugby only recorded one hit, yet had a 5-0 lead.
“He was just throwing right away,” Nygaard said. “I think he was just trying to throw as hard as he can, get it past them.”
But the Storm started chipping away. A single and two errors helped them score two in the bottom of the first.
There was more sloppiness in the top of the second; two more errors led to a pair of runs. Jacob Ripplinger, who plays for the Lake Region State College baseball team, had an RBI single in the inning. Rugby still had a fairly comfortable lead at 7-2.
But Devils Lake kept battling, and McCarthy, despite a really rocky start, settled in. The Storm got one back in the bottom of the second on an RBI single from Easton Kraft, following Ben Brodina’s second hit of the game. McCarthy, meanwhile, set Rugby down 1-2-3 in the third, then worked around a hit and an error in the fourth.
“He started to pitch,” Nygaard said. “He started to set up a fastball. And he said he wants to do his curveball 0-2, 1-2, 2-2. And then he started setting up his curveball. So he throws his fastball up in the zone, and comes back with a curveball away. At the end, he grinded.”
Devils Lake’s big inning came in the fourth, with a five-spot to match the one Rugby began the game with. It boosted the Storm ahead, 8-7. Ryan Samuelson doubled, and Brodina drove him in with his third hit. A couple more errors helped keep the line moving. The first actual out of the inning was a groundout from Talan Gregory, but it tied the game at seven apiece. Finley Wirth had the go-ahead hit.
“Just keep challenging,” Nygaard said of his message to the team. “Do the fundamental things. I think that’s the key word for today. Do what you can. You can’t control something that you don’t have control over.”
With McCarthy throwing well, he stayed in for the fifth. Devils Lake was really trying to maximize his pitch count as much as possible. He struggled a bit again, though, issuing three straight walks after a single. It forced in a run, tying the game back up at 8-8.
McCarthy finished five full innings on a whopping 111 pitches. He allowed eight runs (six earned) on seven hits and seven walks, while striking out seven. It would be safe to call it an adventurous outing.
The Storm didn’t let it stay tied long, scoring four in the bottom of the fifth. It was actually McCarthy who put Devils Lake back ahead with an RBI double. Kraft followed him up with another double — his third hit of the game. The additional two runs came in on a wild pitch and a sacrifice bunt by Tayven Wiberg.
And so Devils Lake secured the 12-8 win. Wiberg threw the final two innings on the mound, retiring all six Rugby batters he faced. He collected three strikeouts.
“He kind of shut the door, too,” Nygaard said of Wiberg. “He threw strikes, and his pitch count was down, too.”
Game 2: Rugby 8, Devils Lake 2
The Storm were plagued by walks again in this one, especially in a parade of them in the fourth inning. Rugby put up three-spots in the third and fourth to build a commanding lead.
Wiberg stayed on the mound to start the nightcap. He gave up two runs in the first inning, though, on two singles and a double.
Rugby committed two errors before getting an out in the second inning. But Wiberg lined into an unlucky double play that ended the threat.
Wiberg bounced back by striking out the side in the bottom of the second. Then Devils Lake loaded the bases in the third inning, with two free passes and a perfectly placed bunt hit by McCarthy.
The Storm nearly didn’t score. But Gregory tapped one softly to shortstop, and he hustled it out for an infield hit. With two outs, everybody was running, and Devils Lake scored two on the play to tie it up at 2-2. Kraft even tried to score from first base — on what was, remember, an infield hit — but he was thrown out at the plate.
Rugby went back ahead in the bottom half, though, in part due to a mental lapse from Devils Lake. With runners on the corners and one out, shortstop Kraft smartly threw home on a ground ball, but catcher Riley Brenno-Quale forgot it wasn’t a force out and didn’t tag the runner. So everybody was safe, and Rugby took a 3-2 lead.
“Riley’s had a lot of games behind the plate; I was kind of surprised,” Nygaard said. “But as coaches, we’ve gotta make sure that they know the situation, to remind them that it’s a tag play. It’s not a force.”
Rugby added a two-run single in the same inning, for good measure. Devils Lake trailed 5-2.
Wiberg came out after three innings in the game, and five innings overall. He struck out six in Game 2, giving him nine strikeouts total.
Kraft took over. He struck out the first batter, but then walked the next three and was replaced by Brodina. The free passes kept coming, as Brodina hit a batter and then walked two more. It was six consecutive free passes between the two pitchers. And Rugby widened the gap to six.
“Coach [Parker] Schmid and I just said, ‘I don’t think the ball has been touched in two innings,’” Nygaard said. “That’s where it starts. It starts on the mound. And our defense gets bored, and they start making mistakes. It’s a team game.”
Peculiarly, the offensive production came exclusively from Rugby’s top six hitters. In fact, at this point, the 7-8-9 batters were a combined 0-for-8 with eight strikeouts. The top six in the order, though, were 5-for-10 with seven walks and only one strikeout.
Gregory threw the final two innings for Devils Lake. He struck out two, walked two and didn’t allow a hit.
But the Storm didn’t have any more runs in them — no more comebacks like in the first game. They settled for a split on the evening.
The B team will get the rest of the week off before returning to action next Monday.
