Gauge Driessen
MINOT — After a series of postponements, schedule alterations and relocations, Devils Lake and Cando Post 79 finally got their much-anticipated face-off Wednesday afternoon.
The District 3 tournament action was held at Jack Hoeven Park in Minot, since Buen Field in Velva couldn’t recover from the rain in time. Wednesday’s games were reschedules of Tuesday’s original slate.
“These guys are pretty loose. They like to just hang out,” Cando head coach Jesse Vote said. “We found some things to do in Minot for a couple days just to try to keep our minds off of things and stay busy.”
The delayed matchup was as advertised. Talan Gregory and Karsen Simon dueled on the mound, overcoming mistakes made on both sides. Each team experienced comebacks and heartbreak in a hard-fought, rain-soaked battle. In the end, No. 1 seed Cando (16-6) came away with a thrilling 5-4 win.
Gauge Driessen, who had a clutch hit in the first inning, walked it off with Cando’s 10th walk of the evening.
“We feel confident,” Driessen said. “We know we’re gonna win this tournament.”
No. 2 seed Devils Lake (26-10) then had to play another game Wednesday night. It ultimately fell 10-9 to No. 4 seed Rugby Post 23, ending the Storm’s season.
“The two losses today doesn’t define our team and our season and the success that we had,” Devils Lake head coach Dustin Brodina said. “It is unfortunate that we’re done. I did tell those guys I think that we probably could have went farther, but sometimes it doesn’t go your way. So it’s frustrating to lose the last two games of the season, but I’m still proud of them for the effort that they gave all year.”
Wednesday’s results set up a championship matchup for Thursday between Cando and Rugby. The Panthers need to beat Cando twice.
“Anytime you have to be beaten twice, it’s a good feeling,” Vote said. “We just beat a very good baseball team. We’re gonna have to beat another good baseball team… You can celebrate this one a little bit, but we’ve gotta stay locked and loaded.”
Game 1: Cando 5, Devils Lake 4
Driessen’s walkoff walk secured a resilient victory for Cando under the rain. The game started and ended with Driessen celebrating, navigating a brief hiccup in the middle where Devils Lake erased a 3-0 deficit.
K. Simon pitched a complete game for Cando. He allowed four runs on five hits and three walks, and he collected six strikeouts. The Bearcats drew 10 walks, including nine against Gregory, who grinded it out for 6 1/3 innings and 123 pitches.
Cando rallied against Gregory in the first inning, ignited by a leadoff walk from Hunter Hagler.
Hagler scored from third on a missed squeeze attempt by Parker Simon. The Storm almost nabbed him in a rundown, but they didn’t execute it cleanly.
P. Simon and his twin brother ended up drawing walks. The Simons pulled off a double steal, and Driessen poked a single up the middle to bring them both in.
Driessen pumped his fists as he reached second on the throw. The Devils Lake alum, whose brother Henley was on the other team, helped his Bearcats take a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Gregory got out of the frame with three walks and a hit against him.
“We kind of picked up on Talan, on where his pitches were going and how he was throwing them,” Driessen said. “So we saw him coming. We know we’re not gonna swing at a bad ball.”
Jaxon Strong came up clutch for Devils Lake in the top of the second. He lined a two-out single to score H. Driessen and get the Storm on the board, still down 3-1.
“I think they were sitting dead-red fastball pretty much all game,” Vote said, noting that Simon started locating his curveball more as the game went on. “They’re so well-coached, and they know what’s coming.”
The first two Cando batters reached against Gregory in the bottom of the second. But he navigated around trouble this time, striking out Hagler and getting Brody Svir to hit into a rundown between third and home. Shortstop Lakin Ronningen made a long throw to get the third out and hold the Devils Lake deficit at two.
The Storm batters continued to make K. Simon work. They drew two walks against him in the third, the second one by Gregory to load the bases. Cando held a brief mound visit.
“There was lots of times there where we had thoughts of bringing Hunter [Hagler] in there earlier,” Vote said. “You run into the pitch count, too… We gotta hope that he can battle himself through.”
With two outs, Cayden McCarthy lined one off K. Simon’s foot. Disaster struck the Bearcats. The fortunate infield single had already scored a run, and third baseman P. Simon made a throwing error to allow the tying run to come in.
A wild pitch from K. Simon scored McCarthy as the Storm took a 4-3 lead.
Gregory, who was struggling early on, found his form for Devils Lake. After a walk to Alec Peyerl in the second inning, he retired the next nine batters.
The streak ended on a ground ball that Hagler beat out in the fifth. He stole second, and Cando manufactured him in with a pair of groundouts. P. Simon’s RBI groundout to the shortstop made it 4-4 through five full innings.
The rain, which had already postponed this tournament more than 24 hours, reintroduced itself in the bottom of the sixth. Gregory started struggling with the strike zone again, issuing two walks in the first three batters. The rain quickly accelerated into an absolute downpour. Both teams abruptly departed the field.
But the rain let up, and they were back within about five minutes. Gregory managed to scratch and claw his way through the mess. He issued his third walk of the inning to load the bases, but he got out of the jam with a strikeout of Hagler. It was his second punchout of the frame and fourth of the night. He was clearly, and rightfully, pumped as he walked back to the dugout.
The Devils Lake offense stranded a single from Tayven Wiberg in the top of the seventh. Gregory got the first out in the bottom half, but he walked the next two and had to come out because of tournament pitch limits.
“We just told [the Cando hitters], ‘Let’s see if he can throw a couple strikes in a row. Have some patience,’” Vote said. “We kind of lost the patience in the middle of the game there.”
Despite issuing nine walks, Gregory gave Devils Lake a tremendous effort to even make it to the seventh. Things were not going well for him early on, and he settled in to give the Storm the best possible chance to win.
“I thought he did a heck of a job… You’ve gotta battle in the game of baseball,” Brodina said. “And he went all the way to the end, almost finished the game.”
Strong took over in a tight situation. After he threw a wild pitch, Devils Lake elected to intentionally walk K. Simon.
That set up a bases-loaded situation for G. Driessen. Since joining Cando, Driessen has been a walk machine with an OBP approaching .500.
So he simply did what he’s been doing all summer.
“I’m like, ‘I’m gonna win this game,’” Driessen said. “‘We’re not gonna lose this game.’”
The Devils Lake side grumbled about a couple of the calls, but Driessen drew a four-pitch walk to end it. The Cando players, who had to fight back into it after that three-run third, erupted in celebration.
“I saw that first pitch. I thought he was gonna call it a strike. It might have been there, it might not have been; I don’t really know,” Driessen said. “The next ball, that’s when it kind of set in with the excitement. Like, ‘I’m gonna win this game. I’m gonna walk this off.’ So when that last ball came, it was just a really good feeling.”
The Storm, meanwhile, had to prepare for another game just moments after getting walked off.
Game 2: Rugby 10, Devils Lake 9
“When it rains, it pours,” they say — sometimes literally.
As the rain picked back up and started drenching the Minot crowd, Rugby scored five runs in the first inning against Wiberg. Devils Lake almost pulled off a stunning comeback, but the early deficit was too much to overcome in an eventual 10-9 loss.
“Baseball is very similar to life,” Brodina said. “You’ve gotta be able to battle it, battle it and recover.”
Wiberg issued free passes to the first two batters, and Alex Berndt’s single got the Panthers on the board. The rally continued with a sacrifice fly, two walks and a throwing error by the catcher to bury Devils Lake in a 5-0 hole.
“It’s the mental part of the baseball game. Things started off a little shaky, and he was not able to recover,” Brodina said. “Kids have gotta grow up and learn to battle adversity. And things aren’t gonna always go your way.”
Wiberg worked around a pair of baserunners in the second and allowed a run in the third. He ultimately gave up six runs (four earned) in three innings of work. He struck out four, walked four and technically only allowed one hit.
Down 7-0, the Storm got two back in the fourth. A double by H. Driessen led to an RBI single by Gregory, and a second run scored on a groundout from Ronningen.
Strong, who threw six pitches in the first game, took over in long relief for Wiberg. He allowed one in the fourth and one in the fifth as Rugby took an 8-2 lead.
The Storm scored on a wild pitch and an Isaac Woodhull RBI walk in the sixth. It brought the tying run to the plate with two outs. Rugby’s Alex Berndt came in and took just one pitch to induce a popup, stranding the bases laoded. The Panthers then added two insurance runs in the seventh to take a 10-4 lead.
Getting the last out was a massive challenge for Rugby. Finley Wirth led off the bottom of the seventh with a walk and came around to score. But Devils Lake still trailed 10-5 with nobody on base and two outs. Most fans were packing their bags and getting ready to leave.
Ronningen singled, sandwiched by walks from Gregory and Strong. Isaac Kraft drew an RBI walk, and two more runs scored on wild pitches.
All of a sudden, Alex Hammond was up with the tying runs in scoring position. Rugby brought in its fifth pitcher of the game, Jeffrey Rosinksi.
“After the first two innings, I was ready to just start the bus and go home,” Brodina said. “But they kept battling… We had a chance to win it.”
Hammond drew a walk to reload the bases for Wirth — the 10th batter of the inning. Another run scored on another wild pitch, and the Storm dugout was getting riled up with the tying run just 90 feet away.
But Wirth popped up. There wouldn’t be any miracles left for this resilient Storm team.
Instead, the sun set on the B squad’s summer season.
“I’m still proud of them, and proud of the season that we had,” Brodina said.
