Sports

Bottineau Post 42 sees Legion season end at regionals

By Matthew Semisch

07/29/2014

More often than not this American Legion baseball season, Bottineau Post 42’s biggest problems came about when the team was in the field defending.

At last week’s Class B West Region tournament in Makoti, however, it was Bottineau’s offense that let Post 42 down.

All through the regular season, Bottineau hadn’t scored fewer than three runs in a single game. Tournament time then came, though, and Post 42 only pushed three runs across in its final two games of 2014.

Bottineau’s season ended after a 9-1 opening-round loss to Makoti on Wednesday and a 10-2 elimination game on Friday. Post 42 finished five games above .500 for the year with a 14-9 record, but three losses in a row - and four losses in the final six games of 2014- brought Bottineau’s season to a frustrating finish.

What makes the end of Post 42’s season an even more bitter pill to swallow is that every team that went to the West Region tournament had reasons to feel confident. Six teams traveled to Makoti, and four of them would be heading to this week’s Class B state tournament in Wahpeton.

Fourth-seeded Bottineau and No. 6 Washburn were the two teams that failed to make it out of the West Region tournament. Makoti, Velva, Watford City and eventual West Region champion Beulah all progressed.

EARLY TROUBLES

Bottineau appeared to be in trouble in Makoti from the very beginning. In the tournament’s opening game Wednesday against the host team, Bottineau fell behind very early and never really recovered.

Each of Makoti’s first three batters up in the top half of the opening frame scored. That proved more than enough run support.

“We gave up a couple of unearned runs in the first inning, and it deflated our energy,” Bottineau head coach Derek Aus later said. “We had to play catchup the whole game.”

Bottineau looked as though it would reply positively in the bottom half of that inning. That was until the end of it, though, when Bottineau’s Casey Tooke batted into a two-out double play with the bases loaded.

Makoti’s lead was bumped even higher to 6-0 in the fifth inning, 7-0 in the sixth and 9-0 in the top of the seventh.

Andrew Hill, Bottineau’s starting pitcher on Wednesday, finally got Post 42 on the scoreboard in the bottom of the seventh inning. Bottineau couldn’t cut further, however, into what had for Makoti had become a seemingly insurmountable lead.

The loss to Makoti left Bottineau in a particularly sticky situation. Thanks to a somewhat unorthodox tournament format - there were two first-round games but the losers of those two games didn’t play each other next - Post 42 had an extended wait to see who its next opponent would be.

That opponent turned out to be Velva, a team that defeated Post 42 8-4 in Bottineau back on July 7. At the time, it was Bottineau’s third loss in four games.

VELVA ELIMINATES BOTTINEAU

Post 42’s second game of the tournament was pushed back nearly a day thanks to Makoti receiving an inch and a half of rain Thursday into Friday.

Sometimes when it rains it pours. That turned out to be the case on the baseball diamond on Friday, too, when Bottineau’s meeting when Velva was finally able to go ahead.

Bottineau again was made to rue missed scoring chances early on Friday as it left runners on first and third base in the top of the first inning. Post 42 left runners on in each of the first four innings, in fact, and it only came away from those frames with one third-inning run from Jackson Johnson to show for their work.

“To have runners in scoring position the first four innings, “ Aus said, “And to have that rally feeling popped every time was tough mentally on our guys.”

Velva’s defense came up huge against what’s normally been a potent Bottineau offense. Post 42 didn’t have too much trouble getting runners on base, but the Aggies pulled four double plays against Bottineau.

Offensively, Velva didn’t run to a whole lot of issues of its own on Friday. The Aggies were already up 3-0 by the time Johnson got Bottineau on the board, and Velva managed to score in each of the six innings in which it went up to bat.

Hill picked up his second run of the tournament in the top of the seventh inning, but a strikeout to Johnson and fly outs from Lee Schneider and Brody Moum finished Bottineau off.

Bottineau loses two seniors, Hill and Schneider, from its 2014 Legion team.