Sports
Jacks season ends with pair or region tourney losses
Tyler Ohmann
05/15/2012
With two wins to their record this season, both coming in early season tournaments, the Dakota College at Bottineau baseball team’s season came to an end with a whimper last Friday.
The Jacks hung tough in a 6-2 opening game loss to the Bismarck State College Mystics, as DCB hosted the Region XIII tournament at the Lumberyard.
A game two 12-2, five inning defeat at the hands of the Williston State College Tetons ended the season for DCB with a record of 2-25.
“We’ve kind of struggled all year with getting bounces to go our way and catching breaks,” Kestor-Mabon said. “But, that’s baseball. I’m not happy with how we ended up performing or how the season ended up going, but at the same time our guys played well as individuals at different times, and we had some highlights.”
One of those highlights came with the pitching performance of Tyias Huck on Friday in the 6-2 loss to the Mystics.
Huck tossed all eight innings and allowed two earned runs on only six hits. DCB had three errors and a passed ball, which accounted for all of the Mystics runs.
“We had pitchers who would pitch well enough to win games, and we didn’t play defense for them, or play offense for them,” Kestor-Mabon said. “It is hard to win baseball games when you don’t play together.”
“It always seemed like one piece of the puzzle wasn’t there,” Kestor-Mabon added.
Tyler Schmidt went the distance for the Mystics pitching all nine innings allowing an earned run and scattering four hits.
Both Drew Allan and Wade Haight had hits and a run batted in (RBI) for the Jacks in the losing effort.
Another error-riddled game sunk the Jacks in their second game of the day against the WSC Tetons.
Bottineau committed several errors in route to a five-inning, 12-2 loss to the Tetons in their final game of the season.
“The story of our season was errors, and it really lets the air out of your momentum, when a guy makes errors on a routine play,” Kestor-Mabon said. “It’s hard to gather any momentum when those sorts of things happen, and a lot of our struggles on the defensive part of the field carried over to the offensive part.”
Tyler Storseth started the game and took the loss for the Jacks allowing 10 runs, nine earned in 3 2/3 innings. He also walked six.
JJ Dukes made a couple spectacular catches over the weekend, showing his range in center field, but the Jacks were unable to put it all together and make a playoff push.
Haight, Dukes and Allan had the only three hits for the Jacks. Dukes and Haigh each scored as well.
“Some guys showed they were talented at different times, we just never put it all together, we never really clicked as a team,” Kestor-Mabon said. “There wasn’t one unifying factor as to why we couldn’t put it together, but we didn’t.”
“It is just a tough year, I don’t know what else to say,” Kestor-Mabon added.
The Tetons went on to defeat the Mystics 4-3 in Friday’s final round robin game. That pit the two schools again on Saturday for the championship, and once again the Tetons came out victorious in a 9-3 win.
Williston will advance to the district tournament to play Region 9 champion Miles City and Region 11 winner Des Moines Community College.
Note:
Dukes was named to the All-MonDak team for his efforts on the diamond this season.