Trason Beck (Photos by Noah Clooten)
DEVILS LAKE — The Storm’s championship hopes came down to Trason Beck.
The senior catcher has come up clutch time and time again for this Devils Lake team. During the regular season, he led the squad in RBIs. Just two days earlier, he’d walked off Wahpeton in the first round of the Class A East tournament.
“He works so hard at just staying steady,” Storm coach Brent Luehring said. “Never a kid that shows a ton of emotion. He’s always just that kid that shows up and does his job, and does kind of a lot of the unheralded things.”
Devils Lake was down to its last strike on Saturday. The stands were overfull with local fans living and dying with every pitch. It was a championship matchup between Devils Lake and Kindred — where have you heard that one before? — and the bases were loaded with two outs, Devils Lake trailing 3-2.
Beck came through again. He hit one way out to the left-center gap, and the Vikings were stopped dead in their tracks. The No. 1 seed Storm (27-9) won the Class A East tournament championship, beating No. 7 seed Kindred Post 117 (17-14) by a final of 4-3 in seven tense innings at DLYA Field.
“It’s very satisfying,” Beck said. “But I gotta thank my teammates who keep getting on base before me.”
For most of the game, the Storm were playing catch-up. Kindred struck first, getting an RBI single by Kylan Swenson in the top of the first inning.
Devils Lake starter Hunter Remmick retired seven in a row after that. But the Storm couldn’t figure out Kindred starter Kelly Erdmann’s curveball-heavy approach early on. They stranded a Max Palmer leadoff single in the first, and got two hit-by-pitches but nothing more in the second.
The Devils Lake batters struggled to square anything up as they went down 1-2-3 in the third.
“I don’t know, man. [Erdmann]’s throwing not overly hard,” Luehring said. “We were just kind of getting ourselves out.”
Kindred tagged Remmick for two runs in the fourth, extending its lead to 3-0. The first three batters of the inning reached. Vikings catcher Graham Hesse stayed hot with an RBI single, and Swenson scored on a groundout from Carson Gette.
“I just think he was leaving his fastball at the belt a little too much,” Luehring said of Remmick’s performance. “Didn’t have a lot of control on his curveball.”
In the bottom half, Erdmann’s control let up. Leading off the inning, he issued back-to-back walks to Mason Palmer and Beck. Kindred coach Josh Allmaras went out to the mound to talk to him.
Remmick flied one to right field for the first out. Palmer tagged up and went to third, but Kindred appealed and it was deemed Palmer left early. The self-inflicted wound took Devils Lake out of the inning.
But the Storm set the table again in the fifth as the No. 8 and 9 hitters both reached. Max Palmer bunted them into scoring position.
Then disaster briefly befell the Vikings. Fausten Olson hit a fly ball that the center fielder dropped, bringing in the first Devils Lake run of the night. The Storm scored a second run on an RBI groundout by Brody Rainsberry. They trimmed their deficit to 3-2, but left the potential tying run at third base.
Devils Lake left another runner on third in the bottom of the sixth.
Will Heilman, who wasn’t in the starting lineup, took over on the mound in the fifth. The Storm opted to pull Remmick after four innings and 60 pitches. He allowed three runs on four hits and one walk while striking out two.
“Our plan was to throw both today,” Luehring said. “It was a decision last night between Will and Hunter. And I basically said to the coaches, ‘We’re gonna go with Hunter until we feel like we can, and then we’re gonna make the switch to Will.’”
Heilman gave it all he had to keep Devils Lake in the game over the final three innings. He issued a two-out walk but nothing else in the fifth. With one out in the sixth, he hit G. Hesse, but struck out the next two — retreating to the dugout to uproarious applause from the Storm fans.
Leading off the seventh, a tough throwing error was charged to shortstop Mason Palmer on a soft ground ball. Kindred then bunted the runner into scoring position. Heilman got out of it with a couple pieces of soft contact.
Heilman held Kindred without a hit or a run in three innings of work. He struck out two and walked one.
“Will did a great job,” Luehring said. “I actually thought Will was kind of all over the place, too — but he did great.”
Erdmann came back out for the bottom of the seventh. His evening ended after issuing a leadoff walk to Taydon Triepke. He threw 90 pitches, just 45 of which were strikes.
Max Palmer kept the rally going with a single. Olson bunted the runners over, and Rainsberry was hit by a pitch to load the bases.
That brought it to Mason Palmer with one out. Palmer almost singlehandedly won Devils Lake the game on Friday. But Saturday wasn’t his night for heroics; he struck out looking for the second out.
He held his bat over his head as he walked back to the dugout. He’d left the tying run at third, and now Beck was Devils Lake’s last hope.
Like Palmer, Beck watched some pitches go by. After taking two pitches over the plate, he faced a 1-2 count.
He let one go for ball two. But none of that mattered anymore as he lined one to the outfield to win the game.
“That was my first swing,” Beck said. “So I just kept wanting to see more pitches. I got two strikes; I knew I had to hit anything close and put a barrel on the ball.”
Beck’s teammates erupted from the dugout and mobbed him at second base. After the team came together to celebrate, they drenched Beck with the water jug.
“It did feel very good to get drenched,” Beck said. “It was a hot one today; not much wind, but it felt good.”
Devils Lake fans, family and friends flooded the field afterwards. There were smiles, photo ops and celebratory chatter all around. The Storm, getting a rare chance to host this tournament, made it all worth it for the countless people who volunteered and showed up to watch their local baseball team.
“Biggest crowd we’ve probably ever had,” Beck said. “It’s awesome. It’s very hometown-oriented around here.”
For Luehring, it was a long time coming.
“I’m a baseball guy at heart. This has been my life for 15 years,” he said. “And to have a crowd like this come out, and us to be able to host it and put on what we think was a pretty good tournament — and hopefully the fans from other towns would agree. For me, as the tournament manager, it was a lot of stress, but it was all worth it.
“Maybe they didn’t play as well as they wanted to the whole tournament, but man, to go 3-0 and win the region and go to state next week, that’s what it’s all about. We know we’ve got better baseball in us, and hopefully it happens next week.”
