Taydon Triepke (Photo by Noah Clooten)
GRAND FORKS — Devils Lake got a heroic hit from Taydon Triepke, but it let leads of 4-0 and 7-5 slip away in an eventual 8-7 defeat on Wednesday.
Grand Forks Post 6 (9-16), an AA team, walked off the Storm (22-9) with three in the bottom of the ninth at Kraft Memorial Field.
“We want to play teams that are good,” Devils Lake coach Brent Luehring said. “So that’s why we’re playing a Double-A team; we’re playing Thompson [Thursday]. We want to play teams that are good at the right time to prep us for next week [in the region tournament]. That’s just the big thing, is we want to compete and find teams that are gonna push us.”
With it being a non-league game, Devils Lake went with a pitching staff by committee. Ben Larson threw the first four innings, Mason Palmer went the next three and Triepke was on the mound for the final 1 1/3.
“They’re ready for next week,” Luehring said. “We kind of wanted them to get around 45 to 60 pitches today, and then they get a week off.”
Royals starter Cade Tostenson threw the first 7 2/3 innings for his team. He left in a 5-5 tie but was eventually charged with seven runs (six earned) after Devils Lake took the lead in the eighth inning.
Tostenson shut the Storm down in two efficient innings to open the game. Both frames were perfect, with just 17 total pitches.
But the Storm tagged him for two runs in the third inning, ignited by a good at-bat from Landon Sundeen that resulted in a single. Easton Kraft snuck one through for another hit, and Triepke drove in the first run with a sacrifice fly.
Max Palmer added another run on a single and some shoddy fielding by the Royals. Fausten Olson kept the line moving with Devils Lake’s fourth hit of the inning, but Tostenson induced a pair of popups to first base, limiting the damage to 2-0.
Larson held the Royals blank through the first three innings. After a perfect bottom of the first, he worked around a first-pitch single in the second and a two-out walk in the third. He ended the third inning with his first strikeout of the evening.
Trason Beck legged out an infield hit to lead off the fourth. Hunter Remmick followed with a single to set the table. They both came around to score — Beck on a Kraft sacrifice fly, and Remmick on a wild pitch — to extend the lead to 4-0.
Larson, who’s been so consistently dominant this summer, finally surrendered a pair of runs in the bottom of the fourth. Both scored with two outs, one on an unlucky bloop single and the other on a double to deep left-center. The Royals sliced Devils Lake’s lead in half to 4-2.
That ended a planned short day for Larson, who threw 58 pitches over his four innings of work. His next start will come in the region tournament in Devils Lake, which is set for July 24-26 at DLYA Field.
In the top of the fifth, Grand Forks made a costly two-out error. Mason Palmer then slammed one to deep left field that nearly left the yard, but he settled for an RBI triple to widen the gap back to three.
Palmer was also the first man out of the bullpen for the Storm. Right away, he got hit harder than usual. After a leadoff walk, he surrendered a triple and a single that scored a run each. The Royals kept it interesting, trimming the Storm lead down to 5-4.
“When you’re playing a Double-A team…they weren’t afraid of Mason’s velo,” Luehring said.
The Devils Lake offense stranded a pair of runners in the seventh. With two outs, Palmer lined an absolute bullet, but it happened to go directly to the Grand Forks left fielder.
The right-handed Palmer mowed down the Royals in a 1-2-3 sixth. But he got into mess in the seventh, partly from his own doing. After a leadoff walk, third baseman Max Palmer made a nice snatch on a hard ground ball, but his throw to second base was off line for an error. With two on, the next batter bunted to Mason Palmer — and, like his brother, he tried to get the lead runner but made a poor throw.
The back-to-back fielder’s choices — with zero outs recorded between them — loaded the bases with nobody out.
Grand Forks tied it up on a sacrifice fly. Palmer collected his third strikeout in as many innings, keeping it at 5-5 through seven full innings. He threw 59 pitches and allowed three runs (two earned) in three innings of work.
Tostenson, who struggled for Grand Forks in the middle frames, settled back in to make it through 7 2/3. A hit by Will Heilman off the bench finally knocked him out after 94 pitches and 10 hits allowed.
Heilman’s hit through the right side set up runners on the corners with two outs. Triepke, facing reliever Ryne Richau, took advantage of his opportunity with a single up the middle for the go-ahead hit. At the time, it was massive in swaying the momentum back in the Storm’s favor.
Max Palmer added an insurance run with Devils Lake’s third straight hit to make it a 7-5 lead.
After Mason Palmer’s three innings of relief, Triepke was tasked with pitching the final two innings. The southpaw is typically a reliable option out of the bullpen for Devils Lake. And his first inning went smoothly with a 1-2-3 frame. But a double, a walk and a single loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth.
Coach Jeff Carpenter visited the mound. But Grand Forks scored one on a sacrifice fly, then won it on a two-run double by Matt Dosch.
Devils Lake settled for the flukey loss ahead of another tough non-conference matchup with Thompson Post 181 on Thursday.
“That’s a good team,” Luehring said of the Royals. “You can tell that they see a lot of good arms at the Double-A level… The goal is just to get us ready for next week.”
