The Hastings Hawks season ended at the bats of the Wanamingo Jacks in the consolation championship in the Region 5C tournament in Owatonna Saturday. The third-place finish in the region means the Hawks missed going to state by one game. With a 10-19 overall record, a state appearance was unlikely, but the 10 wins came in the right games this season.
There are only three total Class C teams in the Classic Cannon Valley League (CCVL), which means there are only four total games that matter for seeding in the Region 5C tournament, unless each team goes 1-1 in those matchups, then the record against Class B teams in the CCVL matters. This year, Red Wing finished 3-1, Hastings finished 2-2 and Cannon Falls finished 1-3 making Hastings the second-place team in the CCVL for Class B and the third seed in the Region 5C tournament.
Region 5C has three teams from the CCVL and ten from the Twin Rivers League (TRL). Seeding for the region starts with the winner of the CCVL as the one seed, the winner of the TRL as seed two then the second team from the CCVL and the second team from the TRL. Those four teams skipped the preliminary tournament where the remaining eight teams fight for four places in the finals bracket.
Hastings started strong with a 7-2 win over Pine Island for the first ever regional playoff game at home at Veterans Park. The home field advantage did not help in game two where they lost to Wanamingo 9-6. The loss forced them into a win three or go home scenario. The first game of the last region weekend was a 4-3 walk-off win over Cannon Falls in Red Wing. That put the Hawks in Owatonna on Saturday to face the Austin Greyhounds where they won 9-4. There was one team left to beat to go to state, the Wanamingo Jacks. The Jacks duplicated their first tournament game against the Hawks, winning 9-6 and ending the season for Hastings.
The first game of the weekend was held at the neutral site of Red Wing where the Hawks faced the Cannon Falls Bears. Cannon took the lead in the third scoring one run, and they added a run in both the sixth and the seventh to go up 3-0, but Hastings scored two in the bottom of the seventh to narrow the gap 3-2.
With two outs in the bottom of the seventh, Noah Paulseth was hit by a pitch to give the Hawks a base runner. Cory Wolters hit an infield single to advance Paulseth to second. A perfectly placed line drive to left center by Jordy Horsch scored Paulseth and moved Wolters to second. Mitch Iliff drove a liner to right center and the Hawks had two runs in. Jackson Schaffer nearly duplicated Horsch’s shot to left and Horsch tried to score from second but was thrown out at home to end the Hawks scoring run.
Heading into the bottom of the ninth, Hastings still trailed 3-2 when Cannon Falls brought in Beau Zimmerman to try and earn the save. Zimmerman stuck out Wolters for the first out and he took Horsch to a count of 2-1. The fourth pitch had Horsch swinging but also fooled the Bears catcher and Horsch was off to the races to first base on the rare wild pitch dropped third strike.
Iliff was the next batter and the two had a batter/pitcher duel pushing the count to 3-2. On the sixth pitch of the at bat, Iliff drove the ball straight up the middle for a single. Jackson Schaffer duplicated Iliff’s hit on the next pitch and the game was tied at three with Iliff on third. Cole Benson came to the plate and the very next pitch Zimmerman spiked into the dirt and past his catcher allowing Iliff to score the game winner on a wild pitch.
Against the Bears on Friday night, Ben Teigland and Ben Bundschu combined for four walks, four strikeouts and nine hits allowed with three earned runs. Offensively Mitch Iliff led Hastings going three for five at the plate with three singles, one earned run and one run scored, the game winner off a wild pitch from the Bears Zimmerman. Horsch, Schaffer and Iliff each had one RBI and Horsch, Iliff, Paulseth and Wolters each scored a run.
On Saturday, the boys took the lead from Austin in the second when Blake Warner led off with a double and was moved to third when Jake Sandquist hit a fly to left. Warner then scored when Jason Greeder hit a single to left field.
Austin tied the game in the top of the sixth, but Hastings blew the doors off in the bottom of the sixth scoring seven. Austin put up three more and Hastings added one to win 9-4.
Offensively, Warner went four-for-five at the plate with two RBIs and two runs scored off two doubles and two singles. Greeder went three-for-four also with two runs scored and two RBIs. Horsch went three-for-five at the plate, scoring twice and driving in one RBI. Iliff and Paulseth each had an RBI, and a run scored. Wolters and Evan Khrin both scored once as well.
That put the Hawks in the true second game in the double elimination tournament against the Wanamingo Jacks. Hastings took the lead 2-0 in the second when Benson and Iliff both scored. Wanamingo shut down the Hastings offense in the top of the fourth and in the bottom of the fourth, the Jacks took over. Wanamingo scored six to take a huge lead halfway through the competition.
Hastings clawed their way back with two in the sixth and two in the seventh to tie the game 6-6 thanks in part to a plethora of errors on the Wanamingo line of the scoreboard. Until the bottom of the eighth inning, Hastings had been playing error free baseball, but two errors in the eighth inning gave Wanamingo a three-run lead and they ended the game 9-6 ending the Hawks season.
Offensively, Paulseth led the day going three-for-three with a walk and a hit by pitch and scoring two runs. Wolters had a great game at the plate going three-for-four with one run scored. Iliff hit .400 with an RBI and a run scored.
With the season over, the Hawks finished 10-19 overall, 2-2 in Class C CCVL standings. They finished the regular season 7-17 overall with key wins over Class B rivals Hampton and Northfield and they earned the two-game sweep over Dundas.
Next up for the team is more updates to the playing surface at Vets and hopefully building the concessions expansion that has been delayed waiting for approval from the State of MN.
For those of you that love the game of baseball, there is still more to be played at Vets. It is unknown which team will be hosting fall ball, but that starts the second week of September, every Sunday for five weeks with games at 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. with a Hastings youth team playing the first and last game. The lone exception is the weekend of September 20/21 when Great Lakes Baseball Academy holds their fall tournament both days at Vets.