Baseball: Reps cruise through regular season on their way to the one seed for west region tournament

BISAMRCK N.D.– The Bismarck Reps started the 2024 season a blistering 11-0 before taking their first loss at the hands of the West Fargo Aces. That was the first of just four total losses on the season, with just one loss coming to a conference opponent. For Reps Head Coach Christopher Scott, those losses pose as an opportunity to learn and improve for the Reps.

“I think about the losses a lot more than the wins, because there’s not a game that we should’ve lost this year. A lot of it is, like I said, we expect to roll teams,” Coach Scott said. “We just came out flat a couple of games thinking that we’re going to win games, and we still have to play hard. But when we play hard, and when we have fun, most importantly, we can beat anybody, and we’ve shown that this year for sure.”

that mentality from Coach Scott rubs off on the players, who admit they learned a lot from their losses this season too. Especially in their latest loss in the first game of a doubleheader against the Minot Metros.

“This past Minot game, we came out and in the second game we 10-ran them,” Reps’ utility player Jaxon Hermann said. “I think it’s just a big confidence factor, I think we lose a lot of confidence after those losses, and i think we need to just bounce back”

The team had to make sure they learned a lot from each individual loss, because they didn’t come often. The Reps weren’t just beating teams, they were rolling teams, including a 23-0 win against the Oilers in mid-June and a 22-0 win over the Regina Buffaloes in the Scheels Invite Tournament. The Reps as a team seldom struggled offensively, scoring just over 10 runs per game. One of the offensive leaders, Coy Eckroth, found success with an approach centered around confidence at the plate.

“I was just going up with the mind of ‘I’m going to rip this ball in half’, and I know if I get on I have teammates behind me that are just going to move me on the bases and we’re going to score runs that way,” Eckroth said. “My main focus is just to get on base, no matter if it’s a single double or triple, I mean, didn’t matter, my approach was just to get on base.”

He got on base, a lot. Eckroth had an on base percentage this year of .500, but it wasn’t just the offense that showed out this season. The Reps threw two no hitters and Jaxon Hermann was a part of their combined no hitter in the first game of the Scheels Tournament.

“it feels great,” Hermann said. “It’s awesome to dominate on the mound, but also just trusting the defense behind us. I think there’s a big trust factor in our guys”

But now it’s time to look forward to the playoffs, and Coach Scott has a singular focus for the team moving into the postseason for them to have success.

“Just having fun the whole time, that was our big thing. We lost to into the other day, and the first game just didn’t look like we were having fun,” Coach Scott said. “Basically the second game it’s like, let’s go out and smile. Smile, have some fun, the more we have fun, the better we’re going to play. it really showed that next game we came out and run-ruled them. I keep telling the guys, the more fun we have, the better chance we have to beat teams.

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