Parker Simon poses with his home run ball.
CANDO — After Parker Simon hit a home run in the first inning, the Bearcats found themselves getting too homer happy at the plate.
“You have to figure out your ultimate goal, or what you’re actually trying to do with the baseball when it’s being pitched to you,” Cando Post 79 coach Jesse Vote said.
A 4-0 lead quickly dissipated into a 4-4 tie, and all the momentum was on Devils Lake’s side. The No. 5-seeded Storm, who pulled out a gutsy win over No. 4-seeded Rugby Post 23 earlier on Monday, tried to stun the No. 1-seeded Bearcats after a lopsided start. Devils Lake pitcher Tayven Wiberg gave everything he had and dominated during the middle innings, but the powerful Cando offense ultimately got the best of him.
The Bearcats won, 9-5, fueled by two big innings. After a four-run first inning, they didn’t score again until a five-run onslaught in the sixth.
“It’s definitely a roller coaster of emotions,” Simon said. “We can’t be looking to drive the ball over the fence every single at-bat. I think that’s what we were kind of doing there. Our approaches changed after we had that big first inning, and we can’t let that get to our heads.”
Cando got its first run right away, almost entirely on accord of Dane Hagler. He was hit by a pitch, stole second base, then scored on two wild pitches.
A double play had Devils Lake on the precipice of escaping with only one run. But Wiberg, who pitched a two-hit shutout his last time out, couldn’t contain the heart of Cando’s order. Simon got ahead of a pitch in the middle of the plate, and crushed it over the left field fence for a homer.
“It was awesome,” Simon said. “I’ve been working all week, put a couple out over the bus barn all week, or on top of the bus barn. I was feeling one, and I was amped up for this game. And I was ready to drive that first pitch that I’ve seen in my wheelhouse.”
Then the brothers got to work. Dane’s younger brother Hunter singled, and Parker’s twin brother Karsen doubled him in. Catcher Garrett Westlind added an RBI single to make it 4-0 Cando.
The Bearcats nearly added a run in the second after Alec Peyerl singled and advanced to third, but Wiberg picked him off.
Cando right-hander Zach Jorde, meanwhile, began his evening with a string of dominance. He struck out Devils Lake’s top four hitters in a row. Jaxon Strong, coming off a productive performance in the first game, drew a walk, but then Jorde struck out the next two. Through seven batters, Jorde had six strikeouts.
But then wildness plagued him in the third inning. He issued a walk and a hit by pitch, and Ben Brodina bunted the runners over. Devils Lake got on the board on a wild pitch.
Jorde struck out Wiberg, but then issued back-to-back walks to Easton Kraft and Cayden McCarthy. A hit by pitch forced in a run. The lead was down to 4-2, and Vote decided he’d seen enough of Jorde.
Jorde actually didn’t allow a hit in his 2 2/3 innings of work, and seven of his eight outs were strikeouts. But he walked four and hit two. Of his 71 pitches, only 33 were strikes.
“It was obviously nice to see some velo that’s back,” Vote said. “But we gotta get in the zone. Plain and simple. We can’t have walks. There’s just way too many of them. You get into a game against a good team — those are gonna come back to bite you.”
P. Simon was the first man out of the bullpen. He came in and recorded a massive strikeout to stop the bleeding for the time being.
The Bearcats’ offense, at the same time, stopped hitting the ball hard against Wiberg. The same pitcher who’d gotten crushed in the first inning cruised through the next four. In fact, he retired 11 in a row at one point. The Cando batters were swinging aggressively early in counts, but they weren’t making the same level of hard contact that they made in the first.
“I think we got in our own heads,” K. Simon said. “We’ve seen Parker go up there and kill that one over the fence. We were like, ‘Well, let’s all go do that.’ We were swinging too hard; we were swinging for power when we should have been swinging for contact.”
The Devils Lake offense, meanwhile, started to get going. Alex Hammond and Rylan Samuelson recorded hits off of P. Simon in the fourth. Brodina laid down another quality bunt, a sacrifice that brought a run in. Then there was a passed ball, and just like that, it was a tie game.
So much for the Cando rout. The Devils Lake dugout was loud and rambunctious, and it only increased in energy as Wiberg kept going back out there and putting up zeroes. It was as if every Devils Lake baserunner or Wiberg out would add a decibel of sound to the Storm’s celebrations. They wanted to pull off the upset.
“We had to get the momentum back,” Vote said. “The momentum was in their hands the whole night, in those middle innings. They did a good job staying on top of us and not letting us get much air.”
P. Simon did his part in holding the tie after the fourth inning. He worked around a McCarthy leadoff single in the fifth, then matched Wiberg’s 1-2-3 with a perfect frame of his own in the sixth.
Overall, Simon allowed two runs on three hits and two walks in 3 1/3 innings of relief. He struck out two. He threw 51 pitches (32 strikes).
“It was a guessing game of who we were gonna go to next, so it was nice that he came in and kind of shut things down,” Vote said. “He’s been there for us all year long. Him and Dane have been the horses. And luckily we were able to keep his pitch count down a little bit; now he can go again on Wednesday.”
Wiberg’s streak of 11 straight retired finally ended on a pitch that grazed Hunter Hagler with one out in the sixth.
And then the merry-go-round went back into motion.
Hagler stole second, and K. Simon poked one through the right side. The RBI single put Cando back ahead, 5-4.
“God gave us seven innings for a reason,” K. Simon said. “We just gotta claw back every single time, and we just gotta get on the sticks. That’s gonna be our strength right now.”
Westlind and D. Hagler both hit RBI doubles as the rally continued. The Devils Lake infielders also made a pair of errors, as the hope of a win crumbled quickly for the Storm. Cando had a 9-4 lead when the inning was said and done.
Wiberg left after 5 2/3 innings, and Isaac Woodhull got the final out of the sixth. Wiberg’s outing was a strange one; the nine runs (eight earned) don’t tell the full story. He got hit around in two separate innings, but was lights-out in between the two crooked numbers.
Levi Borstad took the mound for Cando in the top of the seventh. But he faced only two batters and walked both of them, a performance to which Vote had little patience. He pulled Borstad right there and brought in the team’s ace, D. Hagler.
Devils Lake’s McCarthy fell behind 0-2 right away, but eventually hit a single that loaded the bases. Hagler struck out Strong, but then nibbled around Finley Wirth and issued a bases-loaded walk. It was 9-5, and the potential tying run was at the plate.
“We needed to throw strikes. Plain and simple. We gave them too many free bases,” Vote said. “And then we put ourselves into a bind. And now we’re kind of in a pinch here… Dane had to throw a few too many pitches there at the end that I didn’t want him to throw.”
Hagler ended the game with his second strikeout and a groundout to short. It might not have been the way the Bearcats drew this one up — from blowing a four-run lead, to struggling in the middle innings, to having to use their best pitcher — but they locked down the victory.
“We can’t get down, and we can’t hide away from teams like that,” K. Simon said. “And they’re gonna come and give us their best shot every single game. Every team in our region is going to. We’ve just gotta be ready to attack them.”
Cando is still going to send D. Hagler to the mound on Tuesday in a 3 p.m. matchup with Velva. This will be the semifinal of the tournament, with Cando still needing to lose twice to be eliminated.
“It’s getting a little warm out, so we’re gonna have to hydrate. Push fluids tonight,” K. Simon said. “But it’s just fun hanging out with the boys. We hung out all day today before the game, and we’ll probably hang out tonight. So it’s just fun. I love tournament time. We’ve got all the fans here. It’s a fun atmosphere to play in for everybody.”
Devils Lake, meanwhile, heads to the losers’ bracket after a 1-1 showing on Monday. The Storm will play No. 6-seeded Harvey at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. If they win, they’ll play again around 5:30 p.m. against the winner of the other losers’ bracket game.
