The Hastings Hawks had another busy week scheduled with a visit from the Burnsville Bobcats on July 19, a battle for second place with Cannon Falls scheduled for July 21, an exhibition game scheduled against Coon Rapids on July 22 and the regular season finale at Miesville on July 23. Only two of those games took place. The Burnsville game was rained out after a 5-3 first inning and Coon Rapids needed the game time to make up a league game.

The Cannon Falls Bears were the most important opponent of the week for Hastings because it is a Classic Cannon Valley League (CCVL) Class C game. A win against the Bears and the Hawks earn the chance to host a home playoff game. A win or loss against Miesville was for bragging rights between the two for an otherwise meaningless game for both teams that reside in different classes. The Hawks are competitive and want to win everything, but the big picture is focusing on reaching the state tournament and as a Class C team, the Class B competition doesn’t impact league play this late in the season.

With that being said, the band-aid can be ripped off that game right now. Hastings went to Miesville on Sunday afternoon and fell 11-1 in seven innings, giving Miesville the series sweep this year and avenging last year’s series sweep by the Hawks. Ben Teigland pitched another solid performance against the Mudhens allowing only four runs in six innings. Evan Khrin took the mound in the seventh and the allowed seven runs for the mercy rule loss.

On Friday, Cannon Falls came to town to determine second place in the league for Class C. More importantly, this game determined who would have homefield advantage for a one game playoff, an even more important game.

Hastings received a deluge of rain that afternoon and the game looked to be in jeopardy, but the Hawks volunteer grounds crew and players put a lot of work into the field to get it ready for the game to start. The game did start a few minutes late, which was excellent given the amount of moisture that hit the field.

Dennis Reinhart got his second start on the bump for the week. On Monday, he pitched eight superb shutout innings against the Dundas Dukes, and he was looking to recreate that against the Bears. The first inning the bears went down 1, 2, 3 and it continued from there. The Hawks leadoff batter, Cory Wolters beat the throw on a soft infield single to third to start the offense. A single by Jackson Schaffer moved Wolters to third and a sacrifice fly from Cole Benson scored Wolters to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first.

Reinhart faced 10 batters in the first three innings and only allowed one single. In the fourth, he hit one batter and then retired the side. The fifth inning was the Bears best chance to score the tying run for the first time of the game. The lead off runner made his way to third before the final two batters grounded out and Hastings kept the 1-0 lead through six. Reinhart finished the night with six straight shutout innings.

Tommy Ritt relieved Reinhart and struggled a little in the seventh, allowing the Bears to tie the game on a wild pitch. The eighth is where things really got wild. Ritt walked the first batter before a grounder to third was misplayed by Krhin for an error. A single by the third batter loaded the bases with no outs. That brought up Luke Winchell for the Bears. Winchell hit a soft grounder right back to Ritt on the mound who quickly threw out Noah Paulseth at home for the first out.

This is when things got wacky. Paulseth was on home plate for the throw from Ritt and he turned quickly to throw to Cole Benson at first for the double play. To the naked eye from the angle of the press box, it looked as though the throw to Benson was decent and that Benson had a rare error resulting in the runner on third to advance to home to give the Bears a 2-1 lead. Reviewing the footage provided by Hastings Community Television who was broadcasting the game, it was clear that the reason Benson ‘missed’ catching the ball was because it went off the left arm of the Winchell running to first. The question was, where was Winchell running?

The rule is if a ball lands on the foul line it is still in play, so the same goes for the base runner. If their foot is touching the foul line, they are in play. The 45-foot bump out box along first is in place so that runners clearly know where they need to be running to not be in the way of a throw if it comes from home.

Winchell was ruled to be running in fair territory and therefore he was interfering with the ability of the defensive players to make and receive a throw, so runners’ interference was called. The call resulted in the second run that was scored being taken off the books as was the error charged to Benson. Winchell was called out at first, giving the Bears two outs with runners on second and third. Another walk loaded the bases, but the inning ended on a fielder’s choice out at second and the Hawks dodged a huge bullet to keep the game tied 1-1.

The eighth inning kept the excitement going when rookie Mitch Iliff, who was down in the count 0-2, hit a monster double to left that two hopped to the fence. Schaffer came to the plate and hit a solid grounder to the shortstop. The hit and run was called on the play, so Iliff was already moving to third which messed with the shortstop’s head just enough to force a small bobble on the play and gave Iliff enough time to slide under the potential tag and the Hawks had runners at first and third with one out.

Benson came to the plate with the opportunity to play hero and earn his second RBI of the night and he came through. The 0-1 pitch was driven out to left centerfield for the sacrifice fly when Iliff scored on the tag. The throw home was misplayed by the Bears pitcher Nick Drinken and Schaffer made a smart play advancing to second on the error. The Hawks were up 2-1 with two outs and a runner in scoring position with the .400 hitting Jackson Tessman at the plate. Tessman fought hard, but ultimately struck out to end the Hawks offensive run.

Tommy Ritt closed the door in the final inning to earn the win and secure the Hawks a home playoff game against the Bears on July 25.

The win against Cannon Falls and the loss to Miesville put the Hawks at 13-13 for the season, but there is an asterisk here. The game at Hampton was cancelled by Hampton and they never tried to make up the game. Since it is a league game, it is required to be played and therefore considered a forfeit to make the Hawks 14-13 overall.

Against all Class C teams, Hastings finished 5-3. Against all Class B teams, they were 8-9 and they split two games Wisconsin teams.

Against CCVL opponents, the Hawks were 8-8 overall with a 4-2 record in Class C and a 4-6 record in Class B.

The playoffs are a little different this year. Region 5C is comprised of four Class C teams from the CCVL: Red Wing, Hastings, Cannon Falls and Lake City. Plus, nine teams from the Twin Rivers League: Owatonna, Austin, Pine Island, Plainview-Elgin-Millville, Rochester Roadrunners, Stewartville-Racine, Wanamingo, Winona and Dodge County. The number of state bids each region receives is reliant on the past history of how well the region represents at the state tournament. Recently, teams from region 5C have been eliminated early on in the tournament, so the region only has two state bid this year.

The CCVL will have three teams in the regional tournament and Twin Rivers will have five in the tournament that starts on August 8. Because the CCVL teams have progressed further into the state tournament:

Red Wing finished first in the CCVL and earned the number one seed in the bracket.

The number one team from the Twin Rivers League is the second seed in the bracket.

Hastings and Cannon Falls will play one game with the winner earning the third seed in the bracket.

The loser from Hastings and Cannon Falls will play a best of three series against Lake City that will be played July 28 at 8:00 p.m., July 30 at 2:00 p.m. and, if needed, August 1 at 8:00 p.m. The first and third games are hosted by the higher seed. The winner goes into the bracket and the loser goes home.

The top four teams skip almost all of the play-in side of things for the tournament and earn a little over a week off while the other teams duke it out to fill the eight-team bracket. Since the Red Wing Aces have been a difficult opponent for Hastings the last few years, securing the third seed could be advantageous for the Hawks. The third seed is in the section of the bracket that does not play Red Wing until possibly the region championship.

Hastings defeated Cannon Falls 11-8 on Tuesday the 25th and will play in the first round of the Regional Tournament against Stewartville-Racine  on August 5, 7:00 p.m. at John Burch Park in Cannon Falls.