The Raider Baseball Team finished the regular season with a 5-15 record earning them the sixth seed in the Section 3AAAA tournament. The first round of the tournament went through Rosemount where Hastings fell 7-2. Hastings then played host to Park of Cottage Grove in the elimination round where Hastings fell again, this time 6-8, ending the Raiders season.
Against Rosemount
Cole Karnick had the start on the mound for Hastings, and he held off the Irish batters until the bottom of the third where they scored twice to take the lead 2-0. Karnick recovered and continued to shut down the Irish batters through the fifth inning.
Rosemount’s bats came alive in the bottom of the sixth and two Raider errors allowed the Irish to jump out to a 7-0 lead. Hastings was able to tally two runs in the top of the seventh to avoid the shutout, but it was too little too late and Hastings fell 7-2.
The Raider bats kept up with Rosemount with both teams logging eight hits apiece, but Hastings was unable to string hits together, ultimately stranding 11 base runners to the Irish’s eight. Karnick finished the game with 5.33 innings pitched, one strikeout with three walks. He was responsible for five earned runs; he faced 27 batters throwing 92 pitches. Carter Lundstrom faced two batters in relief before Anthony Butler came in to close out the sixth.
Against Park of Cottage Grove
The Wolfpack took a major lead in the top of the third, going up 5-0, part of which was a three-run home run. They added three in the fifth to go up 8-0, but Hastings never gave up.
First, they scored one in the bottom of the fifth when Luke Niederkorn reached first after being hit by a pitch. A passed ball advanced him to second. A hit and run executed perfectly by Gunnar Skov up the middle scored Niederkorn for the first Raider run.
They tacked on three more in the bottom of the sixth which also started as a hit by pitch, this time it was Austen Viall. Viall advanced to third on two wild pitches, the second after Chuck Wagner was walked. With runners on second and third, Marlow Strain was walked then Brady Hendrickson walked to score Viall. Isaiah Lavergne walked scoring Wagner and the score was 8-3 with no outs and the bases loaded. Niederkorn came to the plate and hit a soft ground ball back to the pitcher who threw to first for the force out, but the throw allowed Strain to score to make it 8-4.
In the bottom of the seventh, Colton McKnight walked to lead off the inning. Viall struck out and Wagner walked for his second plate appearance giving the Raiders two on with one out. Strain crushed the ball to left center clearing the bases. What should have been a standup double turned into an aggressive move by Strain. He tried to stretch the play to third and was thrown out, but the play closed the gap to 8-6. Unfortunately, that was where the Raiders run ended.
With the season over, we’d like to thank the nine seniors that will graduate this year, Jack Bezdichek, Chuck Wagner, Charlie Rud, Cole Karnick, Matt Sherry, Steve Seleski, Mason Reuter, Isaiah Lavergne and Nick Locascio for their commitment to Hastings Baseball.