Sports
Season ends for Braves with semifinal loss to North Star
Tyler Ohmann
05/28/2013
After suffering a 7-0 loss at the hands of top-seeded North Star the Bottineau Braves baseball season ended in the semi-finals of the region playoffs last Thursday in Cando.
Bottineau managed only one hit, a Casey Tooke double, against North Star starting pitcher Daniel Grande in the loss.
“First, you have to tip your hat to their pitcher,” said Braves coach Nate Simpson. “He didn’t give anyone a free pass to get on base, he made us try and do it.”
Bottineau had several other hard balls, including a few to North Star senior shortstop Jake Hagler, which he gobbled up and threw the runners out.
“We didn’t hit the ball very well today, but we did hit some balls hard,” Simpson said. “We hit some hard balls right to their shortstop and he made some good plays. It’s not often that he makes mistakes, and he didn’t make any today.”
Braves junior Andrew Hill was on the mound for the game and gave up three runs to the Bearcats in the first inning, which gave them a jumping point. They finished with eight hits in the contest.
“They jumped on it pretty early, and that first inning really hurt us,” Hill said. “We were pretty confident we could have made a comeback, and the hops weren’t going our way, balls weren’t going our way.”
Hill struck out nine Bearcats, but also surrendered six walks and gave up a home run in the bottom of the sixth inning.
“They really played a good game,” Simpson said of the Bearcats. “They jumped on Andrew’s fastball and they really hit the ball well.”
Hill’s curveball gave the Bearcats some trouble, but it wasn’t enough to stop their offense.
“We know that he would have change stuff up a bit on them, because they do hit fastballs really well,” Simpson said. “He did a nice job mixing pitches in, but he did walk a few guys and most of them ended up scoring.”
Both teams finished with one error, but a few misplayed balls by the Braves helped the Bearcats take advantage.
“There is not much you can do. They took advantage of our mistakes and they hardly made any mistakes at all,” Simpson said. “They played a really nice game.”
Hill said the Braves didn’t quite hit their expectations, since they had been in the position of underdog before.
“I don’t think we met the expectations we gave ourselves, but we had come into the region tournament as a four-seed before, and we had done well,” Hill said. “So, I think that some of us were expecting a better outcome in the game.”
The game was a culmination of a weather-shortened season that was played esentially all in the month of May.
“The shortened season made it difficult, but it was that way for everybody,” Simpson said. “But, such is life. That’s spring baseball in North Dakota for you. Whoever came up with that idea was not very smart.”
“You don’t get to see as many situations and we did the best we could with it,” Simpson continued. “But everybody was in the same boat, but we were an extremely young team, with only losing Kevin Graber, we have a ton of kids coming back, so these kids should be competitive for the next several years.”
Bottineau graduates only Graber and returns all of their starters and their pitcher for next season, an advantage that Hill is excited about entering his senior season.
“I like our chances next year with the age,” Hill said. “A lot of the young kids got to play this year, so we can incorporate that into next year.”
“I feel like we’re going to hit the ball, field the ball and throw the ball real well,” Hill added.
Bottineau finished the season with a 4-6 record.
North Star fell 3-2 to Harvey-Wells County in the championship. The Hornets advanced to the state tournament, which will be held in Mandan beginning on May 30.