Photos by Noah Clooten
DEVILS LAKE — The Firebirds got a win on Friday against the preseason No. 2 in the EDC.
Yet, they ended the evening feeling unsatisfied. After beating Fargo Davies (4-1, 1-1) by a score of 3-1 in its conference opener, Devils Lake (2-1, 1-1) dropped a 10-0 run-rule game in the nightcap at DLYA Field. Both games were seven-inning contests that will count as one point each in the EDC standings.
“We’ve gotta get over that mental hurdle of, you win one and you’ve got the momentum,” Devils Lake head coach Brent Luehring said. “You’ve gotta be able to turn the page and start all over again. Like I told them, I’m happy we got one point tonight against a team that was ranked higher than us. But at the same time, I think I’ve got a little bad taste in my mouth with how that second one ended.”
Game 1: Devils Lake 3, Fargo Davies 1
Senior right-hander Parker Brodina dominated the Eagles in a complete game with just one unearned run allowed. He gave up only two hits and walked one, taking a no-hitter into the sixth inning. He struck out three batters.
“We didn’t throw very much offspeed,” Luehring said. “And we just stuck to the outer half… They were kind of undisciplined on the outer half that first game. We just lived out there, and we like the wind blowing in, man.”
An error by Mason Palmer at shortstop led to Davies’ only run of the game in the top of the first. It was a two-base throwing error, with the runner eventually scoring on a wild pitch.
Devils Lake quickly responded, though, with some aggressive swings in the bottom half. Will Heilman and Fausten Olson singled to put runners on the corners, and Trason Beck brought Heilman home with a well-executed sacrifice bunt. It was knotted at 1-1 after one.
Brodina came out locating his fastball well and getting good movement on his curveball. The only baserunner against him through the first four innings was the error.
Davies shortstop Caleb Christianson made a tremendous play in the hole to help pitcher Cayden Neuharth navigate through a 1-2-3 second inning. Neuharth settled in against a Devils Lake lineup that tagged him early on. He retired 12 in a row after the leadoff singles, with six strikeouts.
Brodina issued a leadoff walk in the fifth, and the runner stole second. He bore down by working both sides of the plate to stand the runner in scoring position. Mason Palmer made a great play at shortstop in two consecutive consecutive innings, with a strong throw deep in the hole in the fourth and a nice running charge in the fifth.
Ben Larson ended Neuharth’s streak with a leadoff walk in the bottom of the fifth. Hunter Remmick drove a deep single to right, putting runners on the corners with nobody out. It set up a key RBI opportunity for Taydon Triepke.
Triepke hit a hard one-hopper to second that the Eagles managed to turn two on. Despite the double play, Larson came home with the go-ahead run.
Brodina blanked Davies in the sixth. His no-hitter got broken up on a leadoff infield single, but for the second straight inning, he stranded a runner on second base.
The Firebirds tacked on a massive insurance run in the bottom half of the sixth. Reliever Jackson Sturma struggled to find the strike zone, walking both Heilman and Mason Palmer. Beck hit a hard grounder that ate up second baseman Wyatt Kosidowski for an error, allowing Heilman to score his second run of the game.
Hanging onto a 3-1 lead, Brodina came back out for the seventh. A leadoff double immediately put him in a tight situation, but he set down the final three batters to finish off the complete game. Olson made a nice catch shading towards left field to make the final out.
“We weren’t gonna change until they made an adjustment,” Luehring said. “Thank goodness they didn’t.”
Game 2: Fargo Davies 10, Devils Lake 0 (6 innings)
Things went from bad to worse in a game that spiraled away from Devils Lake. An eight-run fifth sunk the Firebirds; Larson allowed four runs on seven hits in four innings, while Max Palmer gave up five runs in one inning of work.
Beck was shaken up on a backswing that hit him behind home plate in the first inning. After settling back in and catching a few warm-up pitches from Larson, the Eagles got on the board first again with a two-out RBI single.
“He still, I think he played for a couple innings with not much feeling in his bottom two fingers,” Luehring said of Beck, Devils Lake’s resilient catcher. “He’s tough. He’s tougher than anybody we got.”
Devils Lake survived three hits in the second inning with back-to-back throwdowns at the plate. On a single with a runner at second, Olson hit Brodina as the cutoff man, who gunned the runner down at home by a mile. Later in the inning, left fielder Cayden McCarthy threw one on a bounce to end the frame with a close tag play at the plate.
“I actually preach getting it in to our cuts as quick as we can, because typically there’s not a lot of plays bang-to-bang coming out of the outfield,” Luehring said. “So for us to get both of them, I mean, I’ve kind of gotta eat my words; I know the the one was a relay. But yeah, I’m happy. We work on that simple stuff every day.”
Larson worked around a single and an error with two outs in the fourth to pitch another scoreless frame. Beck and McCarthy got on base to lead off the second and third inning, respectively, but Davies pitcher Kade Ohlhauser otherwise shut the Firebirds down.
Ohlhauser ended up pitching five innings of one-hit ball, striking out seven. He walked three, two of which were to McCarthy.
“He just mixed his fastball and his slider a lot. It’s kind of hard to pick up,” Luehring said. “Really late-moving. Tip your hat to him; he threw strikes and kept us on our toes. Kept us off balance.”
The Eagles led off the fifth with back-to-back doubles against Larson. After the third straight hit, with Devils Lake now trailing 3-0, Luehring brought Max Palmer in to pitch.
Palmer walked the first man he faced, then got a pair of soft-contact outs. The Firebirds opted to intentionally walk Neuharth to load the bases, but Ashton Rinas made them pay with a bloop single to right-center. Two runs scored to make it 5-0.
Davies tacked on two more two-run singles to run the score up to 9-0. Thirteen Eagles came to the plate in a disastrous inning for Devils Lake.
Triepke pitched the top of the sixth and allowed an unearned run, with a hit batter and a passed ball. Devils Lake didn’t score in the bottom half, so it ended as a 10-0 run rule in six innings.
The Firebirds will now hit the road for the first time this season. They have a pair of doubleheaders in Fargo this upcoming week: West Fargo on Tuesday (one two-point game) and Fargo South (two one-point games) on Thursday.
