Cayden McCarthy/Photo by Noah Clooten
CANDO — The Devils Lake B team will live for at least another few hours.
The No. 5-seeded Storm, after falling to No. 1-seeded Cando Post 79 Monday evening, won their first losers’ bracket game on Tuesday against the No. 6-seeded Harvey Eagles. They rode a seven-run first inning to handily take down Harvey 13-3 in five innings, advancing them to a rematch with Rugby Post 23 later Tuesday afternoon.
Devils Lake’s seven-run rally in the first inning came entirely with two outs. Jaxon Strong continued his clutch performance from Monday, lining a two-run single to get the scoring started. It brought in Tayven Wiberg and Easton Kraft, who walked and singled, respectively. Strong came around to score on a double steal and a throwing error. Then Alex Hammond added another two-out hit, driving in two more. Harvey made a pitching change, but Ben Brodina greeted the new hurler with a two-run triple.
Devils Lake led 7-0. The Storm got six straight baserunners with two outs as 11 batters came to the plate.
“You can win a lot of games if you can hit with two outs, especially with runners in scoring position,” Devils Lake head coach Eric Nygaard said.
Harvey notched a two-out RBI hit of its own in the second, driving in a leadoff double. It got the Eagles on the board against Riley Brenno-Quale, Devils Lake’s typical catcher who got a chance on the hill. He ended the frame with his first strikeout.
Brenno-Quale walked the first two batters in the third inning, then surrendered a hard ground ball that got by third baseman Kraft to bring in a run. Another scored on a fielder’s choice, and Harvey trimmed Devils Lake’s lead to 7-3.
But Hammond came up clutch again in the bottom of the third, lining an RBI single to drive in Talan Gregory. Hammond scored on a sacrifice fly from Wiberg. The Storm stretched the gap back to six runs at 9-3.
“He’s a sneaky player,” Nygaard said of Hammond. “He’s not very big. But I can tell he’s played a lot of baseball, because he has good instincts. He gets a lot of good reads on the ball.”
The Eagles knocked back-to-back singles off Brenno-Quale to start the fourth, but he induced three fly balls to keep them off the board. He set Harvey down 1-2-3 in the fifth.
“Riley threw well,” Nygaard said. “He hasn’t thrown a lot of innings this summer, but he’s someone who can come in and throw strikes.”
Cayden McCarthy and Finley Wirth drew walks in the bottom of the fourth, and they both scored on wild pitches. The Storm were in double-digit territory now, leading 11-3.
And they finished the job in the fifth. Brodina and Wiberg both got on, and Kraft smacked a single. An error allowed Brodina to score on the play. McCarthy hit a “walk-off’ single, ending the game via the 10-run rule.
The Storm will play Rugby in an elimination game Tuesday evening. Devils Lake won 8-5 in the teams’ prior meeting.
“One pitch at a time,” Nygaard said. “One inning at a time. If we can win all the innings, we should be good.”
