Cando Post 79 ends Devils Lake’s magical run in district championship, advances to state tournament

CANDO — The Cando Post 79 Bearcats are going to state.

Just a couple months ago, they couldn’t get the job done in spring ball. They were in the driver’s seat in the region championship, but lost the next two games. On Wednesday, they returned to the spot they wanted to be in and capitalized, beating a pesky Devils Lake team to become champions of the District 3 tournament.

“You had that ‘you gotta be beaten twice’ thing in the back of your head from the high school season,” Cando head coach Jesse Vote said. “We just got back to playing baseball.”

The Bearcats scored three runs in the first inning and never looked back. Unlike the teams’ first meeting in this tournament, when Devils Lake came back from 4-0 to tie it, Cando put the hammer down with a 5-1 win. Parker Simon struck out seven without allowing an earned run in 5 2/3 innings, and the offense did enough early to make it relatively stress-free.

“It’s great,” Simon said. “We kind of had little mental lapses there in the spring season — just came up short there — but I feel like today we came out swinging. And we knew we were gonna win that one.”

It ended a special run for the Storm, who made it to the district championship game as the No. 5 seed and the youngest team in the bracket. They had to grind out multiple comebacks just to get this far.

“Devils Lake’s a tough, scrappy team,” Cando shortstop and pitcher Dane Hagler said. “They do a lot of things really well. They were a very competitive team this year, and I enjoyed having them in the region.”

Simon got the start for Cando, entering with 53 pitches already thrown in the tournament. A line-drive double play helped him throw a scoreless first inning, surviving a walk to Ben Brodina and a single by Easton Kraft.

Carson Hogness, meanwhile, got the nod for Devils Lake. The Bearcats rallied for three runs against him in the first. Hagler smacked a leadoff double, and Brody Svir and Zach Jorde got on to load the bases. Simon got the scoring started with a sacrifice fly.

Hunter Hagler loaded the bases back up with a bunt single, and Karsen Simon knocked in another with a single. Devils Lake got a force out on the next play, but a run scored anyway on an errant throw.

Hogness still managed to strand the bases loaded, holding the Storm at a 3-0 deficit after the first inning was complete.

“We’ve been scoring runs early. It was huge,” Hagler said. “We said we wanted to keep doing that.”

P. Simon induced another double play in the second inning, which conveniently came in between a pair of hit batsmen.

The Bearcats added a run to their lead in the bottom half, coming on an error with two runners on. Hogness stranded Jorde on third. That ended his outing, with Cando leading 4-0.

Simon had a much cleaner third inning. He tied up Alex Hammond on a strikeout, then got two groundouts to shortstop D. Hagler.

For the Storm, Hammond replaced Hogness on the mound. He set the Bearcats down 1-2-3 in the third.

Simon had more traffic to deal with in the fourth; his brother Karsen committed an error at third, and Cayden McCarthy poked a single through the right side.

He struck out the next three.

“Today, I had the curveball working, and the slider too,” Simon said. “But they were a super good team. They could put the ball in contact. I just felt like I was in control the whole game.”

Cando threatened for more in the bottom half, but a baserunning catastrophe ended in Brody Svir getting tagged out in a rundown between third and home. It prompted cheers from the Devils Lake side.

But Simon stayed locked in on the mound. He retired the Storm 1-2-3 in the fifth, including strikeouts of Hammond and Brodina.

K. Simon and Chas Bisbee scratched out infield hits in the bottom half. But Alec Peyerl was thrown out by a step on another soft grounder.

P. Simon got the first two outs of the sixth before surrendering a long double to McCarthy, who pulled the ball into the right-center field gap. That brought Simon to his pitch count limit.

“He did exactly what we needed him to do,” Vote said. “We would have liked to get him through that sixth inning, but he kept his pitch count down. He was efficient.”

K. Simon replaced him, with P. Simon moving to third base. The first batter he faced, Jaxon Strong, hit a line drive in and out of P. Simon’s glove. The Cando crowd briefly cheered before realizing that Simon dropped it. He tried to make a last-second throw to first, but it was too late. McCarthy came home with Devils Lake’s first run of the game.

And then Finley Wirth singled to keep the inning alive. But K. Simon got out of it with a flyout to right field.

The Bearcats added an insurance run in the sixth after an error and a sacrifice fly by Jorde. Then K. Simon got the final three outs, issuing just a leadoff walk to pinch hitter Ryan Samuelson.

He finished the game with little stress. And the Bearcats became state bound.

“Karsen’s had some rough outings in closing moments, so it was good for him to come out and shut the door,” Vote said.

The Bearcats now move on to the state tournament, which will be held in LaMoure from Aug. 2-6. They’ve been to the Legion state tournament several times before — they’ll be plenty battle tested heading into the latest competition.

“We’ve got next week to just hang out, and then one more week at state,” P. Simon said. “So we’ll just enjoy the rest of the moments we have with these fellas, and hopefully we’ll make some noise in LaMoure.”

This is the last ride with the Simon brothers, Hagler brothers, Garrett Westlind, Chas Bisbee and Jorde all playing together. They’ll try to get it done, one last time as a squad.

“It’s been a treat,” Vote said. “You’re not gonna forget this group of kids.”

Devils Lake, meanwhile, gets to go home proud of the valiant run it made. The Storm played their best baseball at the most important time of the season, and they stayed alive in the tournament all the way until the very end.

But, ultimately, only one of the six teams that came to Cando this week was going to move on to the next round. And that proved to be the Bearcats, the team with a strong and experienced group of seniors who aren’t ready to be done playing baseball just yet.