Hawks headed to Region 5C tournement

By Bruce Karnick [email protected] The Hastings Hawks finished the regular season at sixth place in the Classic Cannon Valley League at 7-9-0. That record includes games against both Class B and Class C teams. Against the Class C teams, the Hawks finished in third at 3-3-0, ahead of Lake City and behind Red Wing and Cannon Falls.

In the 5C region, they finished as the sixth seed overall behind Wanamingo, Red Wing, Rochester, Cannon Falls and Stewartville- Racine. The top two teams in each the CCVL and the Twin Rivers both earned byes for the first weekend of bracketed play. A weekend that was classified as the ‘Region 5C preliminary bracket’.

Eight teams, each vying for one of four spots in the Region 5C finals bracket. The prelims are essentially a double elimination bracket, lose twice and your season is over. The first round of the prelims was held at the high seed home field. Of the eight teams, Stewartville-Racine was the one seed and Hastings the two.

Hastings played host to the seven seeded Pine Island Pioneers on Wednesday night at Vets Park. Pine Island took the early 1-0 lead in the top of the first, a lead that they would not see again that night. The Pioneers second batter, Tyler Grudem, was hit by the third pitch (HBP) of the game from Hawks starter Max Bundschu. Adam Marshall hit pitch four to left field advancing Grudem to second. Brady Braaten hit pitch seven to Hawks shortstop Ben Teigland who tossed the perfect double play ball to second baseman Jason Greeder for the fielder’s choice. Greeder had the chance to get the double play, but an errant throw from Greeder got by first baseman Evan Krhin, allowing Grudem to score.

The Hawks answered quickly in the bottom of the first when leadoff batter, Cory Wolters hit a grounder towards short. Greeder came to the plate and went down swinging. Isaac Flynn hit a line drive to right on a perfectly timed hit and run moving Wolters to third. An error on the outfielder advanced Flynn to second. Hawks veteran, Jordan Jeske hit a hard fly ball to left field logging an RBI via the sacrifice fly, scoring Wolters. Flynn moved over on a wild pitch, Ben Bundschu was walked and Khrin hit into a 6-3 ground out to end the inning.

Both pitchers settled in nicely after the first inning, Max kept the pioneers baffled the remainder of his appearance. For the Pioneers, Keegan Majerus went strong through three. The fourth is when Hastings started timing him up. Bundschu made it on with a single, Krhin added to his team leading HBP total and then rookie catcher Jake Sandquist followed in Krhin’s footsteps with his own HBP, loading the bases. That is when the game got weird. Fellow rookie, Ben Teigland came up to the plate, one out, bases loaded, game tied at one. Teigland fights off several pitches until he hits a grounder to third. The third baseman makes the smart play and throws to home for the force out on the lead runner. The throw pulls the catcher off the plate and Bundschu scored. The initial call was a throwing error on third, but, the catcher, thinking he made the play at the plate, tossed over to first hoping to get the double play and his throw ends up beating Teigland to log an out. What went from a fielder’s choice to an error, all of a sudden became a 5-2-3 ground out with an RBI for Teigland and a Hastings lead 2-1.

In the fifth inning, Hastings added another run after leadoff man, Wolters, was another victim of being hit by a pitch. Wolters advanced to second on a wild pitch, was moved to third by Flynn’s single to the left field gap and driven home by a 4-3 ground out by Jeske. The game then continued the weirdness, but this time, in a scary way. Ben Bundschu came to the plate for his third time. Majerus had already hit three batters in the most recent innings. The second pitch from Majerus to Bunschu was a high, inside fast ball that simply got away from him and it hit Bundschu right in the mouth. Bundschu instantly turned to the Hawks bench and called for a towel. Majerus sprinted off the mound toward home to check on Bundschu. It was clear that the fourth HBP he threw was not malicious at all and he was clearly shaken.

As Bundschu made his way to the dugout, the injury was obviously bad enough that he would need medical attention. First aid was provided at the field to get the bleeding under control. Will Lavin took over for Bundschu at first to finish out the inning. Majerus returned to the mound to strike out Krhin, ending the inning. Before Bundschu could pack his back, Majerus was over in the Hawks dugout checking on him. He clearly felt awful for the hit and wanted to make sure Ben was going to be ok. Bundschu left the park and was brought to the hospital by his wife to receive treatment. The best thing about the Bundschu boys is their attitude, on his way to the car, Bundschu gave a wave, a smile, and a ‘CAW!’ to the crowd. After the game, and the following morning, he shared a bit of his trip to the ER on snapchat, at one point in the video saying he ‘looks like a [explicative] duck’ followed up by a laugh. He did receive over 30 stitches to his upper lip.

Back to the game, the sixth inning, Hastings scored three more runs, then four more in the seventh to lead 10-1. The top of the eighth Pine Island scored two off Hawk’s reliever Sam Keran to narrow the gap to 10-3. In the bottom of the eighth, Hastings first two batters were retired by the Pioneers reliever, Jamey Strand. Then Krhin walked, Sandquist crushed a double to left field scoring Krhin. Blake Warner made it to first with the fifth HBP by Pine Island pitchers of the night. Sandquist scored on a well hit fly ball to right from Drew Davis and Warner moved to third. Cory Wolters made his sixth plate appearance of the game, and he smacked a rocket of a grounder at the shortstop who could not handle the hard-hit ball that took an odd bounce, so it squirted by him to score Warner from third giving the Hawks the walk off win via the 10-run rule. The Hawks dominated at the plate with seven of 12 batters hitting .400 or better.

Saturday, the prelims made their move south being held at either John Burch Park in Cannon Falls or The Ath in Red Wing. Hastings traveled to JBP to take on the Austin Greyhounds for the matinee game. Lavin started on the mound for the Hawks in what started out as a pitchers’ duel. Lavin struck out eight of the first ten batters he faced, the other two were walks.

The game started as a pitcher’s duel with both Will Lavin for the Hawks and Drew Copely for the Greyhounds having no hitters heading into the fourth. The lead off batter for Austin, Josh Molina walked then advanced to second on a wild pitch. Alex Ciola hit a hard single to drive Molina in for the first run of the game, the only run given up by Lavin for the game. Lavin finished the day with four innings pitched, one run, on one hit with five walks and all strikeouts.

In the bottom of the fifth, trailing 1-0, the Hawks came roaring back. Flynn singled and Sandquist laid down a perfect bunt between the pitcher and first to reach. Nick Horsch, who has been off due to work conflicts, made his first game in a few weeks, tried to bunt as well but was unable to get the placement he needed. Horsch ultimately ended up grounding out to second, which was just as effective as a sac bunt at moving the guys up one base. The next batter was Greeder who decided to show off his power by crushing one off the left field fence for a double, scoring both Flynn and Sandquist giving the Hawks the 2-1 lead.

In the top of the six, Lavin’s relief, Andrew Kemper hit the first batter and then makes an errant throw after fielding a bunt. Kemper’s short-term struggles continued when he walked the eight hitter, loading the bases. Kemper regained his composure and struck out the nine hitter before the top of the order drove in the tying run on a fielders choice. Kemper then struck out the next batter to escape the inning with only one run scored. The game was tied 2-2.

The top of the seventh, Austin’s third baseman, Miguel Castro, lead off with a solo home run to left to give Austin the lead 3-2 Heading into the bottom of the eight, Greeder came through again with a lead off single, Josh Hawksford popped up to the catcher who drops the ball allowing Greeder to advance to second and Hawksford to reach safely on the error. Jeske bunted both guys up a base and Warner crushed a line drive off the pitcher’s leg to score Greeder. Game tied 3-3.

The game entered the bottom of the ninth, still knotted at three. With one out, Simon Hedin replaced Horsch and hit a single under the glove of the diving shortstop. Wolters was walked and Greeder hit another single to load the bases. Hawksford grounded to short with the infield playing in and Hedin was cut down on a questionable call at home for the second out. With the bases still loaded and two out, Jeske stepped to the plate. First pitch was a breaking ball that did not break and instead, it hit Jeske in the leg giving the Hawks the 4-3 walk-off win.

Sunday Night was just as intense of a game. Jordan Jeske started on the bump for the Hawks as they took on the #1 seeded Stuartville-Racine Sharks. The winner of this game earns the five seed for the Regional Finals and the loser the six seed, but you would never have known it the way both teams played. Both teams were outstanding the entire night and played as if this were the state championship. A pitcher’s duel in every sense of the word. Quick innings, few base runners, the hubbub of the park was that the first team to score was going to win.

No one scored through seven innings, both teams had only one error all night and it looked like the game could have been headed for extra innings until the top of the eighth when the Hawks got up to bat.

Baseball is a weird game, you can play almost flawlessly for seven innings and have one weird series of plays in then play flawlessly the rest of the night. That is exactly what happened. Sandquist singled to reach, Davis hit a sacrifice bunt to move Sandquist over. Wolters hit a solid single up the middle to score Sandquist giving the Hawks a 1-0 lead. Wolters stole second base, but an odd throw from the catcher started a snowball fight on the field. Wolters quickly took off to third and the snowball fight continued, this time due to an errant throw from centerfield. The speedy and alert Wolters took off toward home and scored the Hawks second run of the inning.

The top of the eighth ended with the Hawks ahead 2-0, and Jeske returned to the mound to finish what he started. “Yeah, I just went out there and especially with the lead I had my whole mentality since like the fourth inning was just throw strikes, I was walking some guys and got a little wild with my fastball, but I just needed to start with a first pitch strike and that’s what I did. I just continued to throw strikes at these guys getting them out and rolling them over.”

2-0 was not good enough for Krhin. In the top of the ninth, Krhin crushed a homer over the football press box and John Burch Park for the insurance run. Jeske closed the game earning the complete game shutout win giving the Hawks a fifth seed in the Region 5C tournament.

Hasting Manager Shawn Matson was all smiles after the final game of the weekend, and he expected the last one to be a nail biter. “I knew going in that it was it was gonna be a, be a tight, close game, I knew a good pitching and defense was gonna win it for us. That Stewartville that’s kind of team they are they’re gonna make you earn it, and we did.”

With the team having almost a full six days of rest before the next game, Matson knew he could approach the game a little differently. “I wasn’t really worried about pitch count tonight; I was just kind of going off of what Ski was telling me and what he was showing on the mound. After he got out of the eighth, it was a no brainer to let him try to finish the night.”

Heading into the Regional tournament, what does Matson think of where his team is at? “I’m just really proud just really proud of the guys how we showed we can win over the last seven game winning streak. How we’ve, we’ve shown we can win games in multiple ways and that’s what we’re going to need to do in regions next weekend.”

The Hawks will take on the Cannon Falls Bears in Cannon Falls on Saturday the 7th at 1:00 p.m. This is the third time facing the Bears this year and the Bears won both of the previous meetings, 4-0 in Cannon and 9-4 in Hastings. The difference for this matchup is confidence. There is a level of confidence these guys have right now that has not been seen with this team in years. The addition of three extremely solid Raider graduates, the maturing of the college kids and the addition of some new college guys has these guys playing well and trusting each other. When one has an off night, the others pick up the slack and lift their team up together. They are hitting the ball the best they have in a long time and they believe they can beat anyone right now. Can they get the first big win in the region tournament this Saturday? Yes, yes they can, and if you are a baseball fan, you will regret not being there to see it.

Veteran Jordan Jeske started on the mound againts the Stewartville-Racine Sharks to determine the fifth seed for the Region 5C championships. Jeske pitched a complete game shutout allowing only four hits all night in the 3-0 win. Photo by Bruce Karnick

A sequence of throwing errors by the Sharks defense and heads up base running allowed Cory Wolters to score after he stole second base giving the Hawks a 2-0 lead in the top of the eighth inning. Photo by Bruce Karnick