The weekend of games did not go as the Hastings Hawks had hoped it would and through a series of games going in ways out of their control and the 14-2 loss in Miesville, Hastings finds themselves dropping from the possible fifth seed, down to the eighth seed in the section 1A tournament.
At Miesville
The game at Miesville started off with a little craziness, Jackson Schaeffer scored on a fielder’s choice off the bat of Nick Brandt who eventually was called out for missing third base. That out caused a ruckus from both the Hawks bench and the Hastings fans and ultimately caused the officiating crew to give the Hawks a bench warning even though the majority of the comments were from the stands.
Hastings’ lead was short lived with the Hens scoring three in both the bottom of the first and third to go up 6-1. In the top of the fourth, Jason Greener drove Johnny Teigland in with a single, cutting into the Hens lead, but that was all the Hawks could put together offensively.
The warning in the first came back to bite the Hawks in the bottom of the fourth when a very clearly foul ball was called fair by the home plate umpire and the Hawks bench erupted with a collective “Are you kidding me?!?!” The umpire was not happy with the reaction to the call and after a short conversation from Manager Shawn Matson and the umpire, Matson was ejected from the game. Which was ironic given how former Mudhens manager Matt Van Der Bosch argued a questionable call the last time he was at the plate and he nor the Mudhens received any kind of warning.
The Mudhens offense was not going to be stopped as Hastings ended up cycling through five pitchers for the afternoon. Jordan Jeske started the game going three innings, allowing six runs with four of them earned. Ben Teigland went only two thirds of an inning allowing seven earned runs. Dennis Reinhart took over for 1 and 1/3 of an inning allowing one earned run. Max Kaplan took over for Reinhart but after just three pitches he developed a nosebleed that would not stop, forcing the Hawks to bring in Cooper DeSutter. DeSutter went the final inning with no runs allowed.
Had the Hawks won, they would have earned the fifth seed, but the loss knocked them back to the eight seed with the closeness of the rest of the league.
Section 1A playoff picture
The Section 1A playoff picture is complete. St. Patrick is the one seed, Dundas is the two seed, New Market is three, Hampton four, Miesville five, Elko six, Rochester seven, Hastings eight, Faribault nine and Owatonna 10.
The first round of the playoffs begins one game earlier for Rochester as they host Owatonna and Hastings as they host Faribault on Wednesday, July 30 at 8:00 p.m. for the start of the double elimination bracket. To get to state, Hastings must win three games. A win at home Wednesday sends the boys to St. Patrick on Friday at 8:00 p.m. a loss and Hastings goes to the loser of Friday’s Elko/New Market game. The first round loss play back games start on Sunday, August 3 at 2:00 p.m.
Veterans Park will be the host site for Hampton’s home playoff game against Miesville due to the Cardinals home field not having lights. That game will take place on Friday, Aug 1 at 8:00 p.m. The Hawks will have concessions running just like they do for their own games.
Come out to Vets twice this week for some fun playoff action, Wednesday for Hawks versus Faribault and Friday for Hampton versus Miesville!