Fargo Post 2’s Tate Barnacle (Photo by Noah Clooten)
DEVILS LAKE — After a three-run homer by West Fargo’s Toby Retterath, Fargo Post 2 trailed West Fargo 10-1 in Saturday’s elimination game.
The Jets’ summer was on the precipice. The mood in the dugout was “as good as it can be” given the situation, according to head coach Mike Boutain.
“You don’t want to get 10’d [by run rule]. You don’t want to have that as the last game of your season,” Boutain said. “They just tried to make it manageable.”
Through a seven-run sixth inning, Post 2 tied it up. The West Fargo Vets (20-18) retook the lead with two in the ninth, only for the Jets (29-8) to walk it off with three in the bottom half as they pulled off a 13-12 stunner at DLYA Field.
“Credit to them. I didn’t have any magic sauce,” Boutain said. “I just kind of let it be. They took care of it themselves.”
Post 2 right fielder Jack Joyce had the final blow. His walk-off single completed the ninth-inning rally.
“It was awesome,” Joyce said. “It’s crazy.”
Joyce had three hits, a walk and four RBIs out of the six-spot in the order for Post 2. The Jets entered the East tournament as the No. 2 seed, and it took a stress-inducing game like this to punch their ticket to state as the third-place team.
“I’m really excited,” Joyce said. “I think we have a good shot of going somewhere in the state tournament after what we just showed everyone.”
The winning Jets scored 13 runs on 12 hits and 14 walks. The losing Vets scored 12 runs on 18 hits and just one walk.
For the first five innings, it was all West Fargo. The Vets came out swinging remarkably hot bats, with 10 runs across the second, third and fourth innings.
It started with four in the second on a series of bloops, bounces and balls that found grass in a variety of ways. The first four batters of the inning all recorded hits, including an RBI double by Owen Haugen and a pair of bloop singles.
Nine-hitter Jacob Scholand lined a single off Post 2 starter Jack Nelson’s glove. Nelson made a throwing error on the next play to bring a run in. All nine Vets batters came to the plate in the four-run frame.
Post 2 gave Nelson one more batter in the third. But he allowed a long single to Retterath, who’d started the second-inning rally with a single.
That brought an end to Nelson’s afternoon. He threw 39 pitches and surrendered seven hits in two-plus innings.
Haugen greeted new pitcher Sam Chase with his second hit of the game. Post 2 center fielder Harper Schultz then misplayed a deep fly ball, and both runners scored on the two-base error. Scholand added a two-out knock to left field to add the third run of the inning. The West Fargo lead ballooned to 7-0.
Vets pitcher Lukas Grensteiner held the Jets scoreless for the first two innings, stranding three hits. Post 2 got to him in the third with an RBI double by Finn Bergseth.
West Fargo second baseman James Buffington cramped up on the play and had to exit the game. After a brief pause in the action, Grensteiner got out of the inning with two runners stranded.
Still holding a comfortable 7-1 lead, the Vets added three in the fourth inning on one swing of the bat from Retterath. After a double and a single to start the inning, Retterath cranked one over the fence in the left field. It was his second home run of the tournament.
And it looked like just about the end of Post 2’s season.
“They just stuck with it,” Boutain said.
Greinsteiner got into a bases-loaded, nobody-out jam in the bottom of the fifth. Post 2 scratched out two runs to trim the lead to 10-3. They were seemingly innocuous runs at the time.
Greinsteiner turned in a solid outing overall. He allowed three runs on six hits in five innings. He struck out three and worked around four walks. The Vets, though, took him out after 79 pitches.
They replaced him with Retterath, who went 3-for-4 with a home run and a walk at the plate.
But his success at the dish didn’t translate to the mound. The big right-hander struggled with the strike zone, issuing three walks in a five-batter span. His defense didn’t do him any favors, with an error by the first baseman and an infield single that the second baseman couldn’t handle.
Retterath did not record an out. He left after issuing a bases-loaded walk, with the lead at 10-5.
Logan Kiefer came in, and things went from bad to worse. Kiefer walked both batters he faced. Vets coach Nathan Leitner had no patience, pulling Kiefer after just 10 pitches.
“They wanted to make it five runs,” Boutain said. “Then it turned into seven.”
The next pitcher in line was Buffington, who returned to the game after exiting three innings earlier. He threw a first-pitch strike, but Joyce tagged him for a single. It was a two-run knock to suddenly slice the lead to just 10-9.
The Jets tied it on an RBI groundout by Jeremiah Bekkum. They left two on, but they stunned West Fargo with seven runs on two hits and six walks to make it a brand new ballgame.
“We’ve done it all year,” Joyce said.
Chase threw four innings of relief for Post 2. He allowed five runs (three earned) on seven hits and one walk. With the game knotted up, the Jets brought in Tate Barnacle to be their next stopper.
Barnacle found a way to slow down a Vets offense that had been popping. He threw a perfect seventh inning on just five pitches, and a perfect eighth on 11 pitches.
“Tate hasn’t thrown a ton of innings for us; I’m not gonna lie to you,” Boutain said. “But he’s a strike thrower, and he’s a competitor. And that’s all I asked of him right there.”
With the game in extras, Fargo Post 2 still had most of the momentum. Joyce drew a 3-2 walk to start the bottom of the eighth, and his dugout was rowdy as he faced them and trotted along to first. But Joyce ran into an out at third to end the inning, the game stilled knotted up at 10-10.
Buffington ended up giving West Fargo two innings on the mound. He struck out two, walked two and wasn’t charged with any runs.
The Vets finally cracked Barnacle in the top of the ninth. They hit three straight two-out singles against him — including RBI knocks from Parker Connell and Scholand.
“I probably hung [Barnacle] out there for a little bit longer than I needed to,” Boutain said.
There had to have been some sighs of relief in that West Fargo dugout. After blowing a 10-1 lead, it looked like the Vets might hang on to win after all.
But they were starving for arms. Scholand, whose hit in the top of the inning made it 12-10, entered on the mound to try to get the final three outs.
He got the first out, then allowed a long single to left. He induced a fairly routine fly ball that should have been the second out — but center fielder Kaisen Nordick, while running in on it, tripped over the grass. He fell on his backside, and the ball got by him for a run-scoring double.
Scholand walked the next batter and got a visit from his coach. The tying run was two bases away, with the potential winning run on first. Eli Emmineth rocketed one to deep left field that nearly left the yard, but it stayed in for another double.
The lead runner scored to tie it — but the back runner only made it to third, meaning Scholand still had a slim chance to keep the game alive.
Joyce wasn’t going to let that happen. He swung on the first pitch and lined it into left field to win it for Post 2.
“I was just looking for a ball to drive into the outfield to get a runner in,” Joyce said. “That’s all I had to do.”
The emotional seesaw of this game ended in celebration for the Jets. With Casselton, Kindred and Devils Lake having already secured their spots, they were the last representative of the East to punch their ticket to state.
“We’re gonna need some sleep, and chill out a little bit,” Boutain said. “We’ve been playing a little okay baseball, not great baseball, so hopefully this jumpstarts us into next week.”
Other scores from the day
Casselton Post 15 Haymakers 3, Fargo Post 2 Jets 4
- Sam Chase: 2-for-4, 2 RBI, R
- Carter Gephart: 4.2 IP, 7 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 4 K
- Jets advanced to third-place game with this win
- Casselton was eliminated from the tournament, but still advanced to state as the host team
Fargo Post 400 Comets 2, West Fargo Vets 3
- Owen Haugen: 7.0 IP, 3 H, 2 R, ER, 2 BB, 6 K
- Vets scored two in the bottom of the seventh to walk it off
- Vets advanced to third-place game with this win
- Comets were eliminated from the tournament
