CANDO — The North Star baseball team lost a ton of seniors from last year’s team entering this season. It’s a squad full of youth, inexperience and uncertainty. Plus, a combination of scheduling and weather conflicts hasn’t allowed them to play much on their home field.
Yet, the Bearcats locked up the No. 2 seed in Region 5 on Monday. They’ve had a winning season. There are 19 players on the varsity roster, just three of whom are seniors.
“We’ve got lots of potential here,” North Star head coach Jesse Vote said. “It’s been kind of a weird season. The spring’s always hard… Probably the second or third time we’ve even been on our home field. So all of our practice has been at other ballparks.”
North Star hosted a triangular with Rugby and Harvey/Wells County, with each team playing each other to finish out region play.
The Bearcats (6-3, 5-3) won 5-2 over Rugby (7-5, 4-5), then lost 7-6 to H/WC (7-5, 6-4). In between the two games, the Hornets beat the Panthers 8-7. While Bottineau (11-2, 10-0) finished as the top seed in Region 5, North Star finished second with H/WC third and Rugby fourth ahead of postseason play.
Game 1: North Star 5, Rugby 2
The Bearcats took the first game of the afternoon behind a strong dual showing from pitchers Ian Westlind and Brayton Thomas. The offense did enough to get the job done, aided by four Rugby errors.
North Star scored three runs in an ugly first inning for Rugby. It featured two official errors and a couple more plays that the Panthers came just short of making, which were ruled hits. Hunter Hagler had an RBI single, while Westlind added another hit and Brody Sir and Coy Freund each drew a walk.
Rugby’s pitcher dropped a shallow popup while running in, and the shortstop misplayed a ground ball to bring in the third run of the frame. The Bearcats stranded the bases loaded but still batted around and jumped out to a 3-0 lead.
Westlind, who started the game on the mound, has been one of the key components in making this new-look North Star team successful. He’s only a freshman — he’s the younger brother of former North Star catcher Garrett Westlind, one of the graduates of last year’s talented class.
And he looked utterly dominant at the start. He issued only a two-out walk while striking out two in the first inning, and he struck out the side in the second.
He had struck out five in a row at one point before a sudden bout of wildness in the third inning where he walked three in a row. His fastballs inexplicably started sailing high.
So Vote visited the mound.
Westlind dialed back in and struck out the next two to strand the bases loaded. He fell behind 3-1 on Rugby cleanup hitter Alex Berndt, and on 3-2, he threw a fastball that appeared to be a tick low but was called strike three.
Berndt threw his hands up in exasperation. A couple of Rugby fans voiced their displeasure from the third-base side. But it was strike three in the box score, giving Westlind his third scoreless inning with eight total strikeouts.
“It was big for him, just mentally, to find a way to get out of those struggles,” Vote said. “He’s had a couple outings there, some good, some okay, some bad. But it was nice for him to get that confidence, to show himself that ‘I can get out of this,’ and just not get so down on himself.”
Westlind issued a four-pitch walk to start the fourth, and at that point, Vote took the ball from him. It was an odd overall outing for Westlind, who didn’t give up any hits but walked five in three-plus innings.
“We’re gonna have walks in high school. It’s just a thing that’s gonna happen,” Vote said. “But can we minimize our mistakes? Can we minimize the walks and give ourselves a chance to win?”
Thomas took over on the mound. He had a couple hard-hit balls against him, but center fielder Hagler doubled off Rugby at second base to help Thomas navigate his way through the rest of the fourth inning.
The Bearcats added two more in the bottom half. Both scored on a throwing error by the shortstop after Shae Gunderson drew a walk and Hagler was intentionally walked. That gave Rugby its fourth error as North Star extended its lead to 5-0.
Rugby scored a run in each of the next two innings, both fueled by North Star errors. In the fifth, Gavin Barstch hit a two-out RBI single to make the Bearcats pay for an error by third baseman Levi Borstad. Then in the sixth, first baseman Freund missed a throw from the shortstop, and the runner eventually scored on a wild pitch to cut the Bearcats’ lead to 5-2.
Thomas, though, ended up finishing the game out. He didn’t allowed an earned run in three innings of work. He struck out one and allowed just two base hits.
“Today, for the most part, our pitchers threw well and gave us our chances,” Vote said.
Game 2: Harvey/Wells County 7, North Star 6
The teams traded four-spots in the third and fourth, and North Star’s late comeback attempt was thwarted by a missed bunt and a baserunning mistake. Each team made three errors, unofficially.
“I would have liked a little bit better result here in the second game,” Vote said. “A little disappointing in the fielding part. Obviously, we missed critical bunts. That was kind of our forte. We rely on getting bunts down.”
Two wild pitches helped North Star strike first in the opening inning. The latter brought in the game’s first run, following walks from Gunderson and Westlind and a single by Svir.
On the mound, Svir worked around a single with two strikeouts in the first inning. But he struggled to find the zone in the second, walking the first three batters of the inning. All three came around to score, two via a single and the third on a groundout. H/CV jumped ahead 3-1.
Svir bounced back nicely with a 1-2-3 third inning, striking out two. His teammates went back to work in the bottom half. Hagler got things started with a single, and a muffed ground ball by the third baseman put runners on the corners.
Freund laid down an RBI sacrifice bunt to the pitcher, who had a chance to make a play but it got by him for another error. The Bearcats then tied it up, just like that, on a single by Kole Thomson.
Kaden Nelsen kept the line moving with a single. Another error — this time by the second baseman — gave North Star the lead. Then Gunderson drew a bases-loaded walk to extend the advantage to 5-3. The inning ended on runner interference on a potential single by Svir, but not before 10 Bearcats batted and four crossed the plate.
The newfound lead didn’t last long. Christopher Marchand smacked a run-scoring double for the Hornets in the top of the fourth, and he came around to score the tying run on a groundout. Svir threw a wild pitch with two outs to allow H/CV to retake the lead. Another run scored on a throw in the dirt that Freund couldn’t dig out at first, making it 7-5 Hornets.
Freshman J.D. DuPreez, in for the fifth, kept North Star in it with three strong innings. It was his first varsity appearance on the mound. He struck out two in each inning to give him six on the evening.
“I just said, ‘You go pump the zone,’” Vote said. “He’s gonna throw hard. He’s gonna come at you. Hopefully we make some plays behind him.”
DuPreez allowed just one hit, walked two and worked around an error in his final frame.
The North Star offense came up empty in the fourth and fifth. As the game reached the bottom of the sixth, a harsh wind kicked into gear in Cando. Svir and Hagler drew back-to-back walks to set something in motion.
Westlind bunted into a double play to erase some momentum. But Thomson added an RBI single anyway, cutting the deficit to 7-6.
The Bearcats had the tying run in scoring position in the second as Alec Peyerl singled and stole second. But it was again a self-inflicted wound that cost them, as Peyerl tried to go to third on a wild pitch but was thrown out. Gunderson struck out to end the game, the Hornets jumping up with glee.
Now the focus becomes about getting ready for the region tournament. North Star fell one game short of making state last spring.
“They’re a gritty group,” Vote said. “They’ve just gotta understand how to win and how to lose, and what it takes to complete a baseball game.”
